Empty to heaven lay the wold,
Village and church grew green;
The courtyard flagstones spread with mould,
And weeds sprang up between.
And sometimes when the cock had crowed,
And the hillside stood out grey,
Men saw them slinking up the road
All sullen from their prey.
A hooded horseman on a black,
With nine black hounds at heel,
After the hell-hunt going back
All bloody from their meal.
And in men’s minds a fear began
That hell had over-hurled
The guardians of the soul of man,
And come to rule the world.
With bitterness of heart by day,
And terror in the night,
And the blindness of a barren way
And withering of delight.
* * * *
St. Withiel lived upon the moor,
Where the peat-men live in holes;
He worked among the peat-men poor,
Who only have their souls.
He brought them nothing but his love
And the will to do them good,
But power filled him from above,
His very touch was food.
Men told St. Withiel of the hounds,
And how they killed their prey.
He thought them far beyond his bounds,
So many miles away.
Then one whose son the hounds had killed
Told him the tale at length;
St. Withiel pondered why God willed
That hell should have such strength.
Then one, a passing traveller, told
How, since the hounds had come,
The church was empty on the wold,
And all the priests were dumb.
St. Withiel rose at this, and said:
“This priest will not be dumb;
My spirit will not be afraid
Though all hell’s devils come.”