The Creatures

Vast wings were flapping in the still night air;
I saw great shadows cross a gibbous moon;
The mandrakes moaned along the black lagoon,
And in the sky, there hung a baleful glare.
Terror and death seemed stalking everywhere,
And still those vast wings beat that sullen tune;
Were they strange creatures from Outside that soon
Would seize their prey and seek their cosmic lair?

Out of the night, there came a shrill long scream,
And through the riven air, there harshly swept
The charnel sounds of awful slaughtering.
At first I deemed it some mad nightmare-dream,
But from the sundered room I never crept—
My face was eaten by a red huge Thing.