A Ballad.
RICCARDO STEPHENS
The Autumn leaves went whispering by,
Like ghosts that never slept.
Up through the dusk a curlew’s cry
From glen to hill-top crept.
The Dead Man heard the burn moan by
And thought for him it wept.
Lapped in his grave, a night and day,
The Dead Man marked the sound:
He knew the moon rose far away,
Grey shadows gathered round,
Then down the glen, he heard the bay
Raised by his great grey hound.
A stag crashed out, and thundered back
—She never turned aside.
The swollen stream ran cold and black,
—She leapt the waters wide,
Nor paused, nor left the shadowy track
Till at the dark grave side.
“What brings you here, my great grey hound,
What brings you here, alone?
True I am dead, but is there found
Beneath my board no bone?
No rushy bed for your grey head
Now I am dead and gone?”
“Your brother reads your title-deeds,
Your wife counts out red gold,
And laughs in rich black widow’s-weeds,
Red-lipped and smooth and bold.
I want no bone, to gnaw alone,
Now that your hand is cold.”
The Dead Man laughed in scornful hate,
While the great hound growled low,
“Last night I rose to Heaven’s gate,”
He said, “for I would know
The best or worst dealt out by Fate,
And whither I must go.”
He paused—“My grave is damp and cold;
I feel the slow worms glide
Smoothly and softly through the mould,
And nestle by my side.
What lives and moves, in wood and wold,
Where love and laughter bide?”
“The wild fowl fly across, and call
In from the grey salt sea;
I scent the red stag by the Fall,
He fears no more from me.
The moon comes up, and over all
She glimmers eerily.”
The corpse replied, “At Heaven’s gates
They stand to let me through,
And there, years hence, a welcome waits
False Wife and Brother too.
Do what you will, my hound, and still
Heaven holds no place for you.
“With tooth and claw tear down to me,
And Death shall be no tether.
The swift red deer once more shall flee,
Panting through burn and heather:
And you and I once more shall be
Hunting my hills together!”
. . . . . . . . . .
That night the deer across the wold
From dark to dawning fled;
The lady dreamt that, shroud-enrolled,
A corpse had shared her bed;
But by the grave wind-swept and cold,
The great grey hound lay dead!