Aghast and pale, he knows not why—
But the king’s is red with wrath—
“How now, my masters! Shake like babes
To follow the grey wolfs path?”
And none spake word but the eldest lord:
“God shield us from the chase!
For the quarry crossed me as he ran,
And the eyes I saw were the eyes of a man,
Tho’ they looked from a grey wolfs face.”
Loud laughed the king; “A fitting tale
For doting age to tell!
Who lists turn back, but I follow the track
Tho’ it lead to the fires of hell.”
The king doth force his restless horse
Till like the deer he bounds,
Like a flying breath, o’er the windy heath
Behind the calling hounds.
The knightly train spur on amain
As fast as they may flee—
And two are down by the broken bank,
And one by the fallen tree.
Their shadows run in the wan low sun,
Like ghosts they flit beside—
And one is down where the snow lies late,
And two where the marsh is wide.
“Stay, stay, oh king! of all thy train
Alone I am left to follow!”
But the wind beat back the labouring breath
That rattled hoarse and hollow.
In the fearful flight each gallant knight
Lies cold, a broken corse;
By two, by one, the hounds drop dead;
But the king checks not, nor turns his head,
Nor curbs his foaming horse.
Among the lines of the sombre pines
He rides o’er moss and mire;
And lo! their boughs as a brooding smoke,
Their stems as a burning fire!
And had the red sun scorched his sight
Ere he entered the lonely wood?
For he saw in the air but a shifting glare
Like a floating pool of blood.