Black as a pall did darkness fall
As the moon hid in a cloud—
And still lay the king by that nameless thing,
Nor knew that he cried aloud,
Till the white face glimmered thro’ the gloom
As the moon stole out again;
When he dashed from his eyes the reeking blood
And stared upon the slain.
And who may tell, save those of hell,
Of the horror cold and grim
That he felt, who saw in that mirk midnight
His own face look at him?
His own dead face, with the haunting eyes
Of the wife his youth had won?
Woe, woe! in the were-wolf’s grisly guise,
Oh king, thou hast slain thy son!
BALLAD OF SIR HERLUIN
This is the rime of Sir Herluin,
A knight both true and tried,
Who rode from the fray at close of day
With a spear-thrust in his side.
“The Bread and Wine of the Feast Divine
Are all the food I crave:
And in all the land, six feet of sand,
To serve me for a grave.
“How oft, how blithe along the moor,
I’ve rid to the bugle’s sound!
But to-night ’tis I am the hunted deer
And Death the hateful hound,
“That followeth ever, pace by pace—
And Satan the hunter fell
That drives me down to the yawning grave,
And the burning flames of hell.”
Oh, he rode on, and on he rode
By heather and pine and birk,
By moss and moor, till he lighted down
All at the lonely kirk.