Hound answers hound—along the dank ravine23
Pours the fresh wave of spears and tossing plumes;
On—on; and now the idol-shrine obscene
The dying pine-brand flickeringly illumes;
The dogs go glancing through the the shafts of stone,
Trample the altar, hurtle round the throne:
Where the lone priest had watch'd, they pause awhile;24
Then forth, hard breathing, down the gorge they swoop;
Soon the swart woods that close the far defile
Gleam with the shimmer of the steel-clad troop:
Glinting through leaves—now bright'ning through the glade,
Now lost, dispersed amidst the matted shade.
Foremost rode Harold, on a matchless steed,25
Whose sire from Afric's coast a sea-king bore,
And gave the Mercian, as his noblest meed,
When (beardless yet) to Norway's Runic shore,
Against a common foe, the Saxon Thane
Led three tall ships, and loosed them on the Dane:
Foremost he rode, and on his mailèd breast26
Cranch'd the strong branches of the groaning oak.
Hark, with full peal, as suddenly supprest,
Behind, the ban-dog's choral joy-cry broke!
Led by the note, he turns him back, to reach,
Near the wood's marge, a solitary beech.
Clear space spreads round it for a rood or more;27
Where o'er the space the feathering branches bend,
The dogs, wedg'd close, with jaws that drip with gore,
Growl o'er the carcass of the wolf they rend.
Shamed at their lord's rebuke, they leave the feast—
Scent the fresh foot-track of the idol-priest;
And, track by track, deep, deeper through the maze,28
Slowly they go—the watchful earl behind.
Here the soft earth a recent hoof betrays;
And still a footstep near the hoof they find;—
So on, so on—the pathway spreads more large,
And daylight rushes on the forest marge.
The dogs bound emulous; but, snarling, shrink29
Back at the anger of the earl's quick cry;—
Near a small water spring, had paused to drink
A man half clad, who now, with kindling eye
And lifted knife, roused by the hostile sounds,
Plants his firm foot, and fronts the glaring hounds.
"Fear not, rude stranger," quoth the earl in scorn;30
"Not thee I seek; my dogs chase nobler prey.
Speak, thou hast seen (if wandering here since morn)
A lonely horseman;—whither wends his way?"
"Track'st thou his step in love or hate?"—"Why, so
As hawk his quarry, or as man his foe."
"Thou dost not serve his God," the heathen said;31
And sullen turn'd to quench his thirst again,
The fierce earl chafed, but longer not delay'd;
For what he sought the earth itself made plain
In the clear hoof-prints; to the hounds he show'd
The clue, and, cheering as they track'd, he rode.
But thrice, to guide his comrades from the maze,32
Rings through the echoing wood his lusty horn.
Now, o'er waste pastures where the wild bulls graze,
Now labouring up slow-lengthening headlands borne,
The steadfast hounds outstrip the horseman's flight,
And on the hill's dim summit fade from sight.