Who sits within her loft and, half asleep,

Stretches and hears the house below her stir,

Yet sits and yawns, reluctant still to rise.—

Horns sang and deer-hounds tugged a whimpering leash,

Or, loosened, bounded through the baying glens:

And ere the mountain mists, compact of white,

Broke wild before the azure spears of day,

The far-off hunt, that woke the woods to life,

Seemed but the heart-beat of the ancient hills.

And then, near noon, within a forest brake,