“Under these pines I fell, and under these pines I woke;
And I saw their stems as a fire, their boughs as a brooding smoke.
“Woe, woe! for the fight was over, and all around was peace,
Save for a moan on the moor, and a long sigh in the trees,
“And a voice that came and went and wailed in its wandering—
Deep in my mazèd mind I knew ’twas an evil thing.
“Oh for the age that I heard, dying alone in the dark,
That baleful voice, and watched the green and glimmering spark,
“The eye of the prowling wolf, draw near and near and near!—
Thou of the stone-built dwelling what dost thou know of fear?”
Sudden, the wind dropped. The voice died into the night
As the ripples died on the river, and, in the wan moonlight,
Still grew the wavering rushes, and still the trembling strings:
Spell-bound lay Herluin, who gazed on all these things,
And knew not that he saw—while o’er the moorland’s rim,
Lucent, and wan, and lone, the cold moon stared at him.
Long, long it seemed till the wind, a frozen, fleeting breath,
Wailed back from far away, “What dost thou know of Death?”
Murmured the voice, “Give heed, list to the dark, oh day!
Hot heart, hear thou the dust! For, as in fear I lay,