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Robert W Service - The Ballad of Pious Pete
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I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did. 
I grieved for his fate, and early and late I watched over him like a kid. 
I gave him excuse, I bore his abuse in every way that I could; 
I swore to prevail; I camped on his trail; I plotted and planned for his good. 
By day and by night I strove in men`s sight to gather him into the fold, 
With precept and prayer, with hope and despair, in hunger and hardship and cold. 
I followed him into Gehennas of sin, I sat where the sirens sit; 
In the shade of the Pole, for the sake of his soul, I strove with the powers of the Pit. 
I shadowed him down to the scrofulous town; I dragged him from dissolute brawls; 
But I killed the galoot when he started to shoot electricity into my walls. 

God knows what I did he should seek to be rid of one who would save him from shame. 
God knows what I bore that night when he swore and bade me make tracks from his claim. 
I started to tell of the horrors of hell, when sudden his eyes lit like coals; 
And "Chuck it," says he, "don`t persecute me with your cant and your saving of souls." 
I`ll swear I was mild as I`d be with a child, but he called me the son of a slut; 
And, grabbing his gun with a leap and a run, he threatened my face with the butt. 
So what could I do (I leave it to you)? With curses he harried me forth; 
Then he was alone, and I was alone, and over us menaced the North. 

Our cabins were near; I could see, I could hear; but between us there rippled the creek; 
And all summer through, with a rancor that grew, he would pass me and never would speak. 
Then a shuddery breath like the coming of Death crept down from the peaks far away; 
The water was still; the twilight was chill; the sky was a tatter of gray. 
Swift came the Big Cold, and opal and gold the lights of the witches arose; 
The frost-tyrant clinched, and the valley was cinched by the stark and cadaverous snows. 
The trees were like lace where the star-beams could chase, each leaf was a jewel agleam. 
The soft white hush lapped the Northland and wrapped us round in a crystalline dream; 
So still I could hear quite loud in my ear the swish of the pinions of time; 
So bright I could see, as plain as could be, the wings of God`s angels ashine. 

As I read in the Book I would oftentimes look to that cabin just over the creek. 
Ah me, it was sad and evil and bad, two neighbors who never would speak! 
I knew that full well like a devil in hell he was hatching out, early and late, 
A system to bear through the frost-spangled air the warm, crimson waves of his hate. 
I only could peer and shudder and fear — `twas ever so ghastly and still; 
But I knew over there in his lonely despair he was plotting me terrible ill. 
I knew that he nursed a malice accurst, like the blast of a winnowing flame; 
I pleaded aloud for a shield, for a shroud — Oh, God! then calamity came. 

Mad! If I`m mad then you too are mad; but it`s all in the point of view. 
If you`d looked at them things gallivantin` on wings, all purple and green and blue; 
If you`d noticed them twist, as they mounted and hissed like scorpions dim in the dark; 
If you`d seen them rebound with a horrible sound, and spitefully spitting a spark; 
If you`d watched it with dread, as it hissed by your bed, that thing with the feelers that crawls — 
You`d have settled the brute that attempted to shoot electricity into your walls. 

Oh, some they were blue, and they slithered right through; they were silent and squashy and round; 
And some they were green; they were wriggly and lean; they writhed with so hateful a sound. 
My blood seemed to freeze; I fell on my knees; my face was a white splash of dread. 
Oh, the Green and the Blue, they were gruesome to view; but the worst of them all were the Red. 
They came through the door, they came through the floor, they came through the moss-creviced logs. 
They were savage and dire; they were whiskered with fire; they bickered like malamute dogs. 
They ravined in rings like iniquitous things; they gulped down the Green and the Blue. 
I crinkled with fear whene`er they drew near, and nearer and nearer they drew. 

And then came the crown of Horror`s grim crown, the monster so loathsomely red. 
Each eye was a pin that shot out and in, as, squidlike, it oozed to my bed; 
So softly it crept with feelers that swept and quivered like fine copper wire; 
Its belly was white with a sulphurous light, it jaws were a-drooling with fire. 
It came and it came; I could breathe of its flame, but never a wink could I look. 
I thrust in its maw the Fount of the Law; I fended it off with the Book. 
I was weak — oh, so weak — but I thrilled at its shriek, as wildly it fled in the night; 
And deathlike I lay till the dawn of the day. (Was ever so welcome the light?) 

I loaded my gun at the rise of the sun; to his cabin so softly I slunk. 
My neighbor was there in the frost-freighted air, all wrapped in a robe in his bunk. 
It muffled his moans; it outlined his bones, as feebly he twisted about; 
His gums were so black, and his lips seemed to crack, and his teeth all were loosening out. 
`Twas a death`s head that peered through the tangle of beard; `twas a face I will never forget; 
Sunk eyes full of woe, and they troubled me so with their pleadings and anguish, and yet 
As I rested my gaze in a misty amaze on the scurvy-degenerate wreck, 
I thought of the Things with the dragon-fly wings, then laid I my gun on his neck. 
He gave out a cry that was faint as a sigh, like a perishing malamute, 
And he says unto me, "I`m converted," says he; "for Christ`s sake, Peter, don`t shoot!" 

* * * * * 

They`re taking me out with an escort about, and under a sergeant`s care; 
I am humbled indeed, for I`m `cuffed to a Swede that thinks he`s a millionaire. 
But it`s all Gospel true what I`m telling to you — up there where the Shadow falls — 
That I settled Sam Noot when he started to shoot electricity into my walls.
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