And was it but the sighing bough
That whispered in his ear
A boding thought, an evil breath?—
Till he could not tell for fear
Whether a fiend spake in his soul,
Or a voice spake in his ear.
In the heart of the wood, a darksome den
Where the lightning-blasted tree
Gleamed in the gloom like whitened bones,
He saw the quarry flee,
With lolling tongue and foaming jaws,
With faint and faltering pace,
And eyes like the eyes of a soul in pain,
Tho’ they looked from a grey wolf’s face.
Lo! with the crash of a falling tree,
The gallant steed drops dead!
But he loosed his foot from the stirrup-iron,
And fast and far he fled.
Thro’ grey twilight, thro’ falling night
Rang the tireless steps and fleet,
And the throb of his heart kept feverish time
To the falling of his feet.
Oh, thick and tall by the lone kirk-wall
Grew thistle and broom and bent;
The holy bell lay where it fell,
And the walls were riven and rent.
Like a fair white shroud on the altar-stone
Lay the late-lingering snow,
And in the window towards the east
The waning moon hung low.
Now, when the beast had reached the kirk,
It moaned like one in pain,
And swerved, but the hunter cried behind,
And drove it on again.
But when it came to the altar-stone,
It started, and leapt, and fell—
And the shout of the king as he gripped its throat
Mixed with its dying yell.
And lo! some evil ban was loosed
By the power of the holy place—
And the glazing eyes with ghastly gleam
Glared from a dead man’s face!