Read "A Mammon-Marriage" by George MacDonald online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The croak of a raven hoar!
A dog's howl, kennel-tied!
Loud shuts the carriage-door: / The two are away on their ghastly ride / To Death's salt shore!
Where are the love and the grace?
The bridegroom is thirsty and cold!
The bride's skull sharpens her face!
But the coachman is driving, jubilant, bold, / The devil's pace.
The horses shivered and shook / Waiting gaunt and haggard / With sorry and evil look; / But swift as a drunken wind they staggered / 'Longst Lethe brook.
Long since, they ran no more; / Heavily pulling they died / On the sand of the hopeless shore / Where never swelled or sank a tide, / And the salt burns sore.
Flat their skeletons lie, / White shadows on shining sand; / The crusted reins go high / To the crumbling coachman's bony hand / On his knees awry.
Side by side, jarring no more, / Day and night side by side, / Each by a doorless door, / Motionless sit the bridegroom and bride / On the Dead-Sea-shore.