Sleep Not On Your Back

 by Brett Rutherford

     Based on an Old Assyrian Hymn,
(Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judentum, ii, 413.)

Sleep not on your back, for Lilith comes,
and from your seed her progeny shall rise.
If warts and boils assail you, they are
the lip-prints of Lilith’s kisses, beware!

An evil demon has enveloped your bed.
An evil ghost prevents your rising.
A great devil has taken your breath
and made all your hairs to stand on end.

Bewail at morning the hag-demon’s clutch,
the breath of a ghoul still fresh in our mouth.
The robber-sprite makes dim your eyes
and no mortal human beauty ravishes you;
only the thought of dark pollution pleases you.
Your limbs are wracked by an evil goddess,
the Night-Phantom’s Handmaid
     has made you her groom.

And when you die, alone, unshriven,
the legion of your invisible children,
pale kindred of your nocturnal emissions
shall crowd about and call you ‘Father.’