Beyond Willow Hill Poem by Dylan S. Wylde

In the gardens of youth
Where once I did roam,
Through meadows of lore
And the hillocks of home,


My eyes they caught vision
Of a maddening sight,
As I wandered that garden
One late autumn night.


Twas upon familiar ground
Beyond the old Winston mill,
Just beyond the high timber
And just beyond Willow Hill.


A black moon rose
Before the sky's rolling might;
Casting upon the hillside
A cold, sinister light.


And as I did follow
That steep, winding trail,
Whisperings I heard afar—
Melodies gaunt and frail


From beyond the cold vail
Where sets forth thy sail,
Above gambrel rooftops dreaming,
The old nightingale
With a sorrowful wail
For the northern sky ever gleaming.


So faint, yet familiar,
Those whispers bleak and bare,
Catching flight upon wings
In the stillness of the air.


Ahead in the distance
There rose to my sight,
The slow, wonderous glow
Of a faint, eerie light.


From the ground it rose
Tangled in twisted briar,
Caressing the ancient oak
Whilst rising ever higher.


With my innocence adrift
And curiosity well at hand,
From my pathway I strayed
Towards a mad, decaying land.


Of my hypnotic ramblings,
I recollect no detail,
As if led by a trace
By which spectral eyes travail.


As the hour grew frail
Before that desolate trail,
My coherency was soon renewed.
Yet, madness would prevail
With a blackening regale
And my faculties all subdued.


Fantastic was my confusion
As realization became clear;
So far had I strayed
From my homeland so dear.


To the horror I awoke
From my cold, dismal sleep,
Surrounded by a fog
From the high mountain steep.


There too, in the mist
Protruded void of sound,
Many a faceless grave
By the low, sunken ground.


No nightmare of youth
Nor tragedy dispelled,
Could prepare my sanity
For what I then beheld.


Under that sick black moon
And before my very eyes,
The earth began to rupture
And the dead began to rise.


Indifferent to my cries
And veiled in disguise:
The tatterings of foul decay,
Those corpses did arise
In hunger for my demise,
Blind to the blessings of day.


Slowly, so very slowly
Crept that parade of repulsion,
Advancing ever closer
With a disfiguring convulsion;


With bodies all asway,
With bodies all a mesh,
Devouring the open air—
The perfume of rotting flesh.


Unable to think, unable
To move, I stood paralyzed in fear,
Until my spell was broken
By a howling grotesque and queer.


With a crude, singular motion
That blasphemous army ceased,
Throwing back their heads
With a hell-born scream released.


Madness in that moment
Dismantled sanity with a blow,
Recalling not my escape
Towards my homeland aglow.


Yet, most certainly I know
The horror I did forego,
Which sent me a fluttering craze,
Turned only for me to show
That terror from below
Shall haunt my remaining days...