My horse had been lamed in the foot <br />In the rocks at the back of the run, <br />So I camped at the Murderer's Hut, <br />At the place where the murder was done. <br /> <br />The walls were all spattered with gore, <br />A terrible symbol of guilt; <br />And the bloodstains were fresh on the floor <br />Where the blood of the victim was spilt. <br /> <br />The wind hurried past with a shout, <br />The thunderstorm doubled its din <br />As I shrank from the danger without, <br />And recoiled from the horror within. <br /> <br />When lo! at the window a shape, <br />A creature of infinite dread; <br />A thing with the face of an ape, <br />And with eyes like the eyes of the dead. <br /> <br />With the horns of a fiend, and a skin <br />That was hairy as satyr or elf, <br />And a long, pointed beard on its chin -- <br />My God! 'twas the Devil himself. <br /> <br />In anguish I sank on the floor, <br />With terror my features were stiff, <br />Till the thing gave a kind of a roar, <br />Ending up with a resonant "Biff!" <br /> <br />Then a cheer burst aloud from my throat, <br />For the thing that my spirit did vex <br />Was naught but an elderly goat -- <br />Just a goat of the masculine sex. <br /> <br />When his master was killed he had fled, <br />And now, by the dingoes bereft, <br />The nannies were all of them dead, <br />And only the billy was left. <br /> <br />So we had him brought in on a stage <br />To the house where, in style, he can strut, <br />And he lives to a fragrant old age <br />As the Ghost of the Murderer's Hut.<br /><br />Andrew Barton Paterson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-ghost-of-the-murderer-s-hut/
