Column and vault, and seaweed-dripping domes,108
Long vistas opening through the streets of dark,
Seem'd like a city's skeleton; the homes
Of giant races vanish'd since the ark
Rested on Ararat: from side to side
Moan the lock'd waves that ebb not with the tide.
Here, path forbid; where, length'ning up the land,109
The deep gorge stretches to a night of pine,
Veer the white wings; and there the slacken'd hand
Guides the tired steed; deeplier the shades decline;
Dull'd with each step into the darker gloom
Follows the ocean's hollow-sounding boom.
Sudden starts back the steed, with bristling mane110
And nostrils snorting fear; from out the shade
Loom the vast columns of a roofless fane,
Meet for some god whom savage man hath made:
A mighty pine-torch on the altar glow'd
And lit the goddess of the grim abode—
So that the lurid idol, from its throne,111
Glared on the wanderer with a stony eye;
The King breathed quick the Christian orison,
Spurr'd the scared barb, and pass'd abhorrent by—
Nor mark'd a figure on the floor reclined:
It watch'd, it rose, it crept, it dogg'd behind.
Three days, three nights, within that dismal shrine,112
Had couch'd that man, and hunger'd for his prey.
Chieftain and priest of hordes that from the Rhine
Had track'd in carnage thitherwards their way;
Fell souls that still maintain'd their rites of yore,
And hideous altars rank with human gore.
By monstrous Oracles a coming foe,113
Whose steps appal his gods, hath been foretold;
The fane must fall unless the blood shall flow;
Therefore three days, three nights he watch'd;—behold
At last the death-torch of the blazing pine
Darts on the foe the lightning of the shrine!
Stealthily on, amidst the brushwood, crept114
With practised foot and unrelaxing eye,
The steadfast Murder;—where the still leaf slept
The still leaf stirr'd not: as it glided by
The mosses gave no echo; not a breath!
Nature was hush'd as if in league with Death!
As moved the man, so, on the opposing side115
Of the deep gorge, with purpose like his own,
Did steps as noiseless to the blood-feast glide;
And as the man before his idol's throne
Had watch'd,—so watch'd, since daylight left the air,
A giant wolf within its leafy lair.
Whether the blaze allured, or hunger stung,116
There still had cower'd and crouch'd the beast of prey;
With lurid eyes unwinking, spell-bound, clung
To the near ridge that faced the torchlit way;
As the steed pass'd, it rose! On either side,
Here glides the wild beast, there the man doth glide.
But all unconscious of the double foe,117
Paused Arthur, where his resting-place the dove
Seem'd to select,—his couch a mound below;
A bowering beech his canopy above:
From his worn steed the barded mail released,
And left it, reinless, to its herbage-feast.