Songs of the Seasons :: :: University of Virginia Library

I am coming, I am coming!
Look ye out with more than eyes,
Listen! but with more than ears!
I am coming, I am coming;
Seldom come I by surprise,
Oftener than with smiles, with tears—
Look ye out for my pioneers!
Look ye out for the snowdrop simple,
Look ye out for the crocus and daisy,
For the song of the thrush from the budding bush;
For the flutter of life, and its smile and dimple,
And the breaking of light through the shadows hazy.
Listen and look for the caw of the rook,
And the busy repair of clustered nests
That swing to the breeze, on the tops of the trees,
Older in date than their owners' crests!

Look ye out for the bell of the trout,
On a river freshened with showers—
Whiten'd with creams, and soothed with the beams
That herald the sun's redeeming powers.
Icy Winter is hard of life,
And jealous of my going forth;
With every wind he is at strife,
Save what bloweth east and north.
With him to contend I am oft at fault,
Yet his snows protect what his frosts destroy,
And when my journey is called to a halt,
The wreath that buries begets a new joy.

SUMMER.

I am coming, I am coming,
When my sister Spring retires,
Under escort of wing'd lyres,
And with bees around her humming:
Musical wings salute me too,
Blending welcome with adieu,—
Flowers, both of field and garden—
Flowers, too, of lake and fountain,
Of the forest and the mountain,
Hail me as their chosen warden.

Sister Spring around her focus,
Gather'd snowdrop, true! and crocus,
Primroses, and daffodillies,
Violets, hyacinths, and lilies,
In a timid, tearful cluster;
These, and the forget-me-nots,
In the Virgin court made muster,
Sharing her divided thoughts.
With her passing they have died,
Some of them, but not them all.
'Twas her wish to leave the bride
Of the round year, at Whitsuntide,
Some delicate memorial;
And so, I, Summer, am the heiress
Of the Spring, and half her beauty,
And her handmaids, nymphs, and fairies,
Tender me their loving duty.

All this dower I accept,
With the true, becoming grace
Of a monarch in her place,
The donor leaving not unwept!
On the May-day of my birth,
At sunrise, you will find the sward
That belts the hills with emerald girth,
Bathed in dew-drops of regard:
But I have treasures of my own,
To which my sister's fond bequest

(The love excepted, treasure best!)
Endureth no comparison.
A richer glow is on my cheek,
A higher lustre in my eyne;
The generous largess of a queen
Flows from me of its own accord:
They need not but to take, who seek
My bounties, and to praise the Lord!
Poets and artists hold me fast,
With loving clasp at every turn;
In leafy bower, by limpid burn,
In all the nooks of their sojourn,
They study me as I glide past.
Upon the purpling moor, they sing
And sketch their rapture at my knees,
And on the hill-tops stay my wing
With homage; and their mysteries
To keeping of my ear confide,
In barter for the Summer tide.
And wooers also, of a sort,
Less ardent, greet my coming forth,
And travel to the glowing north
From the dull town to pay me court.
To murmuring inlets of the sea—
To breezy outposts upon which
I take my airings and bewitch
The eye with landscape broad and rich,
The ear with flowing melody.

Out with me, in the morning's mist,
Saunters the mineralogist,
Wallet on back, and hammer in hand,
Riving the rock and raking the sand.
Out with me roams, nor cares a whistle
For granite, mica, shale, or schist,
The labour-loving botanist,
Who, in the veriest tare and thistle,
And in the humbler weeds accurst
By toiler with the plough and harrow,
An interest finds, and slakes the thirst
Inherent in his inner marrow.

For such men I create my wonders,
For such I reign and levees hold,
And for their pleasure forge the gold
Whose currency is told in thunders.
For me all hunger, yet ingrates
That in the winters, chill and dreary,
Longed for the spreading of my gates,
Now, these are spread, pronounce me weary.
“Weary, oh! weary is the summer!
Weary, oh! weary is summer time!
Welcome Autumn—the after-comer!”
Is the burden of their rhyme.
The hey-day of my youth is gone,
I, Summer, of the seasons Queen,
Am warned of old age creeping on.

The opal in my mystic crown
Shows waning life; the florid green
Is passing into russet brown.
A chill comes o'er me in the eves,
And creeps along, with snaky stealth:
The hinges of the rustling leaves
Are loosened, and my flowery wealth
Filch'd from its pedestals and stems.
The amber cups and roseate stars—
The carcanets of burning gems—
The hoods, the helmets, and the plumes,
From which the armourer of Mars
Shaped harness, and the maids of Venus
Sore pilfer'd, nor the offence deem'd heinous;
All this, my store of floral wealth
(Who choose may take, and welcome most
The freest taker!)—shows unhealth.

Well! Summer, like her sister, Spring,
Must wane and die, if that be death
Which is the folding of the wing,
And the withdrawing of the breath
A measur'd space! I come again
In my own season, all renewed,
To inspire new hymns of gratitude,
And cause the palms of pious men
To meet in praiseful attitude.
Farewell! I hear the reaper's song,

The vintage gatherer draws nigh,
The hornets round the nectarine throng,
The corn-ears rustle and around
My closing curtains flits a sigh!
I die! I die!

AUTUMN IN THE HIGHLANDS.

Sister Summer, she is dead!
And a wail goes up the valley;
Misty forms and shadows rally
Round about the mountain head;
And the wail becomes the muttering
As of thunders in restraint,
Holding requiem for a saint!
Shall I set my breezes fluttering
To dispel this heavy grief,
I, who am the mourner chief;
I, her heiress, the new comer,
Heiress to the Throne of Summer?
Dead is Summer! but she died
In the ardent clasp of Love,
In an ecstasy she died!

Songsters caroll'd in the grove,
And with rapt'rous notes the dove
To her monody replied.
Flowers their sweetest breath exhaled,
Fairest hues her eye regaled;
At her will and to her wishes,
Tided in the pride of fishes!
Through the gates of Neptune's palace,
Tided in the scaly forces;
Up by shining water-courses,
Radiant salmon climbed the valleys.
In her Empire, all was beauty,
Glowing, ravishing, possessing!
Love lay fondled and caressing
In the lusty arms of Duty.
All was beauty, which her sceptre
Touched, or shadowing overwaved—
Beauty that enkindled rapture,
Conquered, fettered, and enslaved.
Rosy curtains in the dawning,
In the eve a rosier awning!
In the noon-tide, a contention
Of bright azures overhead;
Fleecy clouds in rapt suspension—
To the visionary mind
Kindred to the angel kind,—
Such as in the great Ascension

Waited with their wings outspread
To escort the Risen Dead.
All was beauty and perfection
In my queenly Sister's time.
Poets from her drew direction—
Drew the thoughts that make sublime—
The sweet fancies that give lustre
To the harmony of rhyme!
Now, around the bed of state,
By her coffined presence pressed,
Bards of every nation cluster,
And all great Designers wait.
Marvel not that I look pensive
Musing on her joyous reign,
Gazing out on hill and plain,
On the treasures comprehensive
Which flowed in at her demise.
Ah! the freshness and the splendour
That regaled and dazzled so,
By the spell of Evil eyes,
By some ominous witch of Endor,
Have been rifled of their glow.
Idle these regrets! The morrow
May bring healing on its wings.
From corruption, Beauty springs;
Happiness is born of sorrow.

Chastened sorrow is the finest
Of delights, because divinest.
Of the Seasons, as a Season
To be gladdest, I have reason.
Have I not to suit my pleasure,
Store of riches without measure—
Every quality of treasure?
Caravans, with wealth untold
Laden, cross my daily path.
Hill and valley, steep and strath,
Are aglow with sheaves of gold.
To the far horizon's line,
You, the ardent mountain-sitter,
May pursue the waving glitter
Casting life into the brine.
There, too, in the moaning seas,
I have treasures and keep state,
Sitting on a rock elate,
Throned among my argosies!
I have harvests in the port,
In the tideway, crops prolific;
The Atlantic and Pacific
Waft their offerings to my court.
Dazzling shapes come, southward pressing,
On the bearing of the wave;

Welcomest, as boon and blessing,
The unfailing “herring drave!”
Come and view my garden riches,
Terraced walks and sunny slopes—
Grottoes, arbours, statued niches,
In whose odorous recesses
With her fair, refulgent tresses,
Summer toyed, or, couched on hopes,
Sleeping, shunned the sun's caresses.
Of these hopes, the sweet fruition,
Part was hers—the lesser part—
Grateful to her generous heart,
Even a tithe; 'twas recognition,
Of the service she had rendered,
And the wealth of blessings tendered.
In the glory-time of cherries,
When they hang, like orbs of coral,
Gazing out o'er treasures floral;
At the feast of ruddy berries,
When the circulating bowl
Plenished is with creams of clover,
Ere the banquet was nigh over,
From the lips of the Great Soul
Of universe, a voice descended,
“Summer, thy brief reign is ended.”

So, I've come into possession
Of the flower-wealth, in part,
Only to feel sad at heart
And lament my own accession.
All the incense, nearly all,
Which endowed my sister's breath
Is burnt out. The Holy Death
Sought a balmy funeral.
I have fragrance, ne'er the less,
Left me, and great flush of colour,
Both, I fear, foretelling dolour—
Neither, winsome of caress.
Meet me in my orchard yard,
Roam among my vineries,
Shake the loaded apple trees!
Welcome Artist! Welcome Bard!
Shake the filbert and the hazel,
Shake the walnut, and the chesnut,
Go on shaking, Pen and Easel!
None of mine the motto—“Waste not.”
I would rather, than the breeze,
Or the versed in pious frauds,
That the gifted of the gods
Revell'd in mine arbories!
Plant my standard, rich with blazon,
Tissued by no niggard churl,

Where the tempest may unfurl
Signals for the eye to gaze on!
Plant it on a Norland Peak,
Over which the symbol resteth
In whose clefts the eagle nesteth,
Cruel eye o'er crueler beak!
On a hundred such, let float
My web of glory. Serfs impassive
Wait me on the mountains massive,
Eager to take turn about
In the pageant and the shout.
Trumpets blown by able lungs
Animate my sober paces;
Echo, heedless of the graces,
Heeding more the stately muses,
The enchantment of her tongues
In the extasy unlooses.
I am casting off my spells,
Setting loose my eerie wells,
Rifling the witch-land of Fancy—
Peopling, too, with shapes unchancy
The recesses of the dells.
Round the cauldron, at the linn,
I set haggard forms a-spin.
On the cairn that crowns the height
Blue fires shew at dead of night.

Breaking the cold grave-yard's calm,
In the yew-shade, at the gloaming,
I with charm of holy psalm,
Exorcise the spirits roaming.
Leering demons at my will
Peep out in the traveller's path:
Loiterers who provoke my wrath,
Shiver in the deadly chill,
Faces comic and grotesque
I delight to carve and fashion;
With the ugsome, the burlesque
To commingle, is my passion.
Goblin hunch-backs, full of frolic,
Hairy satyrs, grinning apes,
Urchins twisted with the cholic,
And a world of grisly shapes.
Out at night, I set adrift
These, the marvels of my craft,
When at speed with levelled shaft
Riding on the stormy lift,
Tilts the Moon Queen—vizor down
As the rebel clouds come surging
Sullenly with surly frown
Their unknightly chargers urging.
Lo! the fowler waits for me—
Wearies, like an ardent lover,
For the hour of my appearing!

Happy with his dogs and gearing
And the dream of glossy wealth
Hidden in the purple cover.
At the dawning of the Twelfth,
While, as yet, the dews are falling,
I regard him on the hill
To his wayward setters calling;
On the hill, among the heather
Dropping with an aim of skill
Tuft on tuft of lustrous feather.
Ho! the stalker of the Stag,
I espy him striding forth,
The great Nimrod of the North!
Through the oscillating hag,
Trusting to the leal rushes,
With a ready foot he pushes—
Through the pinewood, up the crag,
Gliding, clambering, striding on,
In his eye the silent corry,
With its vert and venison.

INTER-PART.

In the days of ancient foray,
Round about the hunter's path,
A great, gloomy forest spread,
Sable shade o'er Ben and Strath—
Shook its plumes on wintry nights

O'er the raving torrent bed—
Cover gave to surly sprites—
Secrets held from vulgar ken,
Of dark deeds and foul intents,—
The death-throes of murdered men,—
Treacheries and ravishments!

Here, too, lurked the savage boar,
Brandishing his whetted tusks,
Chafing o'er his meal of husks,
Champing, snorting, sniffing gore.
With his bristles all astir,
When, on breath of dewy morn,
Music from the hunting horn
Animated oak and fir.

And the ruffian wolf found hiding
In this Sanctuary's heart,
Through the mazy covert gliding,
Noiseless, without star or chart;
Like a shadow in the shade,
With two flaming eyes endowed,
God defend the boldest-browed
By this murderer way-laid!

Here, too, streaming from the swamp,
Harbour found the shaggy Bull;
With his slow and measured tramp
Filling up the weary lull.

In the old days of the chase,
Ere the cunning arts expanded,
When the dagger, spear, and bow,
Of the rifle held the place,
Who would care a craftier foe
To encounter single-handed?

With the strength of Elm and Oak,
With the felling of the Pine,
In the Sanctuary's shrine;
With the Woodman's wanton stroke,
Levelled at some old-world column,
Guardian of the dread and solemn!
With the death-shriek of the Druid
Driven from his kin and kith—
Fettered to a monolith
In the grim heart of Glen Fruid,
From the violated covers,
Vanished the old forest rovers.

Through the gloomy mountain gorges,
Lightnings held their snaky play—
Gleamed and hissed the fiery fluid,
When the Pagan and his orgies,
Howling, shrieking, passed away!
Passed with Pagan superstition,
Crafty Bison, foaming Boar,
And the great Elk of tradition

That held harbour in Strathmore.
Yet, the Stag in all his glory,
Stately, royally apparell'd,
Stalketh where the were-wolf snarl'd—
Coucheth 'mong the remnants gnarl'd
Of a Forest famed in story!

In my musings held a part,
The great Tainchels of the kings,
When, by herald and by horn,
Messuages and summonings
Crossed and stirred the nation's heart.
With the breaking of the morn,
From the wellings to the mouth
Of a foaming river, roll'd
Tidings of the royal behest!
Out of castles in the South,
Nobles and retainers bold
To the place of trysting press'd.
Out of strongholds in the North
Haughty chieftains strutted forth;
Sturdy hench-men, pipers stilted,
Marshalling the vassals kilted.
From the East and from the West,
At the Monarch's high behest,
Experts with the bow and shaft,
Men of subtlety and mark,
Rangers in the Royal Park

Versed in olden Forest-craft
And the arts of Venerie,
Hurried, to show fealty.

With the Slogan of the Chase,
A great panic swept across
Thicket, underwood, and moss,
Wildering the antler'd race,
Roe and “rascal” laying spell on,
Scaring from his haunts the felon.
To the fissures of the rocks,
To the curtains of the fens,
To the holds of wolf and fox,
Fled the Forest denizens.

I am musing, I am dreaming,
Of the old, autumnal days!
Mused on through the dreamy haze,
They have gained a holier seeming;
Like the works of some great master,
In whose ekeing out took part
With the hand, the head and heart—
A brave labour of renown
Which, protected from disaster
By the worshippers of art,
Time hath chasten'd and ton'd down.

From my brows the film hath slid

Moist with eye-charms, that had power
Of inner pageant, while they hid
The gross transits of the hour.
Pass'd the visionary mood
Which resuscitated forms
Kindred to the steeps and storms—
Kindred to the mighty Wood
That, from Loyal's tow'ring crest,
Crowded into Strath and Glen,
Belted many a giant Ben.
With its umbrage onward press'd,
Drawing life from Loch and River,
From the stores of the Life-Giver,
Till it reach'd the Border marches,
Bridging with its shadowy arches
Silver Tweed and songful Teviot—
Reached the fosses of green Cheviot!

With freed eyes, once more I search
For symbols on the Grampian tops,
Wandering from copse to copse—
Through the hazels and the birch,
Up, beyond the purpled fringes,
Up into the place of boulders,
Round the mountains' lusty shoulders,
Where the storm-gates on their hinges,
In the elemental battle,
Wheel and clatter, clash and rattle!

Casting onward, I descry,
In a drowsy hollow feeding,
The great Hart, and to his leading
Follow hundreds of the kind,
Calf and Broacher, Stag and Hind;
But above them, royally,
Monarch in the Herd's esteem,
Crowned with antlers vast of beam,
Palmed and pointed, towers He,
Like an Oak of olden date
Among Saplings holding state!

Why this pricking of the ear?
Why this rousing of the head?
Why this sniffing of the wind
And regarding of the Hind?
What of trouble dreams the Deer?

In the drowsy hollow lies
A Tarn which the water-shed
Feeds with generous supplies;
Cherished thus and lustre-fed,
Brightest of the mountain eyes,
Up it gazes to the skies!
Here, Nymph lilies swing their cables
And with festal chalices
Carved in time of ancient fables
Out of glistening ivories,

Cumber the enamell'd tables
Wrought in buoyant malachite
By the cunning Water-Sprite.

Under screen of reedy spears,
Here the wary mallard steers
Followed by his dusky mate,
Painted, like a barge of state,
With its pageant prow elate!
From the quiet tarn, in stealth
And ambuscade, a riv'let issues
At each turn uncoiling tissues
Laden to its brim with wealth,—
Crystal life, and trusts of health.
From the covert of the sedges,
From the hidings of the banks,
To and fro, flit jewell'd wedges,
Pearly fins and rubied flanks.

Out at bowshot from the source,
I lose token of its course,
As it passeth from the levels,
Through a fissure in the glen,
To pursue its merry revels
Downward to the homes of men.
In the cleft, below the hollow,
As I watch it disappear,
Straining out mine eyes to follow,

A faint clicking meets the ear.
Up! the mighty Antlered Head!
Up! the fronts of many a Deer!
Panic through the Herd hath spread
Forecast of the Stalker dread!—
Comes a blaze, and comes a smoke,—
Comes the rifle's fell discharge;
Echoes bound are set at large,
Loosed are lips that only spoke
In conf'rence with the Thunder-stroke.

Oaks! your arms of tempest swing!
Wave your sable plumes, ye pines!
Fallen is the Forest King,
With his crown of many tines!

Through the corrie, up the shoulders
Of the mountain, stream the masses,
Tearing past the place of Boulders—
Plunging down through savage passes—
Crossing torrent—climbing crag.
On the flurried wings of fear—
Onward press the startled deer,
Calf and Brochard, Hind and Stag!

From their heathy ambush start
The grim slayer of the Hart
And his stalwart, kilted gillie,

In the leash a deer-hound leading.
But a thought's-time since, were feeding
In that hollow, now so stilly,
Hundreds of the cervine race.
Not a hoof is left, nor horn,
Not a mottled Hind to mourn
The dead monarch of the Chase!

It is sunset—and the setting
Is Creation's self of glory—
A Creation, like a story
Fabulous, yet past forgetting.
In a language richly fraught
Of the gems that image Thought,
Of the liquid syllables
Found, like pearls, in Saxon wells—
Of the coinage, rare and quaint,
Dug up in the Doric fells;
Fraught of cyphers and of scrolls,
Mystical and half attaint,
Spelt out on Cathedral walls—
Of curt words that live in mottoes
Or in charters of entail,
Of the warblings heard in grottoes—
Voices from the nightingale!—
Fraught of sounds, which once did duty
In the Academic grove,
Full of power and life and beauty,

Apt for Hymns of War and Love;
Sounds which Homer turn'd to meaning—
Sounds which Sappho trained to measure;
Many a century intervening,
Flowing still to Britain's Treasure,
To her endless lingual Treasure!—
Steel'd with sinews of a tongue
Spoken by the dauntless Latin,
Now at vespers and at matin
Mumbled, parodied, unstrung;
Ruling once in camps and senates,
Medium, now, of monkish tenets!
Medium, by whose twisted handle
Law and leech-craft sweat and swindle,
And at bidding of the Vandal
Science moves on rusty spindle.

In a language to whose keeping
Poets gave the inner man—
Felt its presence in their sleeping,
Turned and woke to lead the Van
With new Pæans—nobler measures!
In its variegated treasures,
In the lavish flow and glow,
In its pithy emphasis,
In its sweet alliterations,
In its swayings to and fro,
And its graceful undulations,

In its chaste simplicities,
In its rare plasticities
And its fine felicities.
In its bundle of conceits,
And its store of counterfeits,
In its conjuncts and declensions,
In its classic apprehensions,—
In these marvels, all combined,
Ingot over ingot turning,
I am at a loss to find
Utt'rance to the hidden yearning—
Fluency of song and power
To depict that glowing hour!

High upon a peak defiant,
On the Cromlech of a Giant,
I sit watching, for the night
Comes, and with it One I dread.
The grand splendours overhead
And the dazzlings round about
Now are vanished from my sight.
Towards Ocean looking out,
I descry upon the wing,
In the far West glimmering,
Galleons freighted with the spoils
Of my palace grounds and arbours—
With the fruitage of my toils
Pressing on to distant harbours.

As I watch them disappear,
Shining mast and crimson'd sail,
A great rustling fills the ear,
As of leaves before a gale.
Night's wan shadows, fast and faster,
Travel past me, bringing fear
And the boding of disaster.
East-ward, on a wall of vapour,
Like some grimy, battered shield
Found on ancient battle-field,
Hangs the moon, full orbed and dim,
While above her pallid rim
Holds a star its ghostly taper.

Again the film is on mine eyes!
Presences before me press
Sister Summer to caress,
Summer radiant with reflections,
Sister Spring to sympathise!
Spring intent on resurrections.
Other shapes and evil-brow'd
Mingle in the phantom crowd—
Some to warn and some to scare,
Some to mock and some to stare
Into stone with snaky eyes,
Overlapp'd with snaky hair!

From the depth of every hollow,

Comes a moaning, and the sounds,
Piteous more, of wailing follow,
With the howl of famish'd hounds!
Through the air, a fire-bolt hurtled,
Casts its glare o'er cairn and peak,
From their distant eyries, startled
By its hissing, eagles shriek!
Welded in the Arctic forges
Ice-bolts follow thick and fast,
Rattling through the flinty gorges,
Out on foray with the blast.
From the far and frosty regions
With his desolating legions
The Usurper comes at last.

Nine gray, weather-beaten stones
Crown the peak on which I rest,
Laid out like a Runic chest.
Old Tradition and her crones
Gibber of gigantic bones,
Without cross or cerement,
In this dreary dwelling pent.
Surely, or mine ear deceives,
I hear stirrings under-ground—
A great wrestling and the sound
Of yokings to fetch home the sheaves!
On my knees I fall and pray,
Sister Summer! Stay! oh stay,

Sister Spring! thy rosaries bring!
Alas! both have fled away!
Under me the Cromlech heaves,
And the huge gray stones dispart,
The last anguish rends the heart,
Bear me to the stream I love,
Bear me to the weeping grove!
Bury me among the leaves!

WINTER.

High time I should wield the sceptre,
High time I should play a part
In the Drama of the Year!
Timid Spring (although I kept her
Prison'd long) by power of heart
Burst her fetters, and with rapture
Freedom shouted, far and near!
Of the Queenly sisterhood,
Her alone I held in thrall,
And in my rude fashion woo'd—
Woo'd, as the old Sea Kings woo'd—
Of my riches prodigal—
Prodigal of oath and bluster,

And of jewels that in lustre
Rivall'd those of real cost,
Worked up by the hand of Frost.
For her shapely limbs infantile
I devised an ermine mantle;
In its glossy foldings wrapp'd her,
To the throat with fleeces happ'd her;
And my choicest artisans
Brought the triumphs of their skill—
Streaming wimples, waving fans,
Wrought behind a Lapland hill,
In some dragon-watch'd recess
By the busy sorceress,
Known through Scandinavian valleys
As Aurora Borealis.
I, her guardian, for a while
Fondled her in such rude fashion,
Sought my fair ward to beguile,
Proffer'd her my senile passion,
Only to interpret scorn
Out of her responsive smile,
And to shake my head forlorn!
Ay! when March had nigh run down,
I read rebel in her eyes;
But the terror of my frown
Had evanished with my spells;
Rattling down came icicles,
Slid the snow-drifts off the heights,

Captive Spring assum'd her rights,
And I, powerless, dropp'd my crown!

Face to face we never met,
I and rival Summer, yet
My cold cheek is made to burn,
Oftimes, with her jealous breath,
And I smite her in return.
Winter's Life is Summer's Death!
Truly, there is no love lost
Betwixt us: still we work as one;
Mutual purposes are cross'd
Only to insure the doing
Of the work that must be done.
All away from servile wooing
Is my action with the Summer,
'Tis a battle without ending—
A great, measureless contending—
Each in turn the Overcomer!

Autumn, too, makes cause of quarrel,
That with her I hold no parle,
Deeming me a crusty carle!
When the stain is on the laurel
And the mildew on the bay,
Rests it, even with lips of coral,
The ill signs to kiss away?
Less, with languid breath, like hers,

Or the warmth of minnivers
Heaped upon a dying Queen,
To restore their wonted green.

Of all things effeminate,
True! I make earth desolate!
The companions of the Rose
Tremble when I come. In vain
The battle with my chills and snows—
The striving with the hurricane!
Yet in mercy, more than wrath,
I trample them below my feet.
The deadliest poisons are the sweet,
And the adder's choice retreat
Lurketh in the flowery path.

With the wrecks of garden-beauty,
In the earnestness of duty
I deal ruthlessly. They ask
No quarter, and have lost desire:
Yet less ruthless than the Fire
Are the hands I set to task;
And she slanders me, who says,
Drawing from a fancy fertile,
That I persecute the myrtle,—
Slay the laurel,—scourge the bays.
It is I who nurse them, rather,
Freshen up their sickly hues—

Dissipate the rusts that gather,
Counteract the evil dews.
Without Me, how the Year would fare!
How wearily would life creep on,
In one unvaried monotone,
How slumberous the very air!
How stagnate river, lake, and sea;
No wind, no wave, no energy
Of sound or action; no true psalm
Of Nature breaking through the calm,
But the pent gasping which pertains
To dungeons and their festering chains,
To the lazar-house and tomb,
To recondite catacomb,
To the pestilential fen
And the throat of dragon's den!

In the Black land, watchers grimy
Greet my coming to defy me;
In the kingdom under ground,
Where, with jetty diamonds crown'd,
And attired in glossy sables,
Sits the Fire King, Ancient Coal!
On a daïs of control,
Heading the convivial tables
Where his thousands of tried miners,
Frugal in their fare, as diners,
Wax uproarious round the bowl.

Hand of friendship I would stretch,
Ay! and do, oft and again,
To this comrade of my reign:
But my fingers all relax
In his grasp, like melting wax,
And I feel it were unwise
Dignity to compromise;
So, I leave your shivering wretch
To his mercies, and proclaim
Dissolved the League of Frost and Flame.

'Tis His duty to unfreeze,
Mine to vex the bed of ease;
His to foster and to cherish,
Mine to wither and enchain!
From the graves of those who perish
In my desolating reign,
Three-fold life will spring again.
Ruler stern of the unruly!
Swarthy comrade! answer truly,
Out of thy seductive heart
Canst thou multiply the strong?
Will thy kindlings at the feet
Of the oak insure from wrong?
Art thou slower to devour,
On thy day of breaking forth,
Judg'd of when the wind is north,
In an eligible hour,

When thou play'st the nursing mother
Indoors to both babe and flower,
And the check is on thy power
To inflame, consume, and smother?
I am terrible, 'tis true,
Thou, who liv'st the whole year through
In hypocrisy of heart,
More terrible and cruel art!

Yet, in one week of the Year,
In the merry Christmas time,
When from belfries far and near,
From Cathedral towers sublime,
From the spires of village churches,
Flows the soul of Inter-chime—
In the week memorialized
Of His Advent, who by purchase,
And the Body sacrificed,
Reinstated in God's grace
The fallen of the human race;—
When the Mistletoe suspended
Deftly from the festive ceiling—
Mystic leaf with berry blended—
Gives invite to chaste saluting;
And the treasured stores of feeling
Make up in their breaking out
For long terms of double dealing—

Charities their hands forth-putting,
With a self-applauding shout!

In the reign of Pantomime,
When the strutter on the stage,
Charged throat-high with florid rhyme,
Personates a mythic age—
Brings to play the Jack and Giant,
Ogre, faery, gnome, and dragon—
Matchless drainers of the flagon—
Ravishers, and knights defiant—
Ladye loves of all degrees,
From the Princess to the Peasant,
Making of the Past a Present;
By the help of magic keys
Throwing wide the wondrous gates
Of invisible estates
In the world of Fantasies:—
In that festival of truce
I find blustering of no use.
Should I summon my war hosts
Into play to rave and threat,
With his wondrous amulet
Among rosy sapphires set,
He, the unscar'd, scares my ghosts,
All the dismaler their howl,
All the merrier the laugh
Indoors, and the streaming bowl

Rimm'd with Motto “Fill and Quaff,”
Faster circles with the pace
Of my whirling Spectre-race.

'Tis in vain the siege I press—
Cast in vain for port of sally
And my scatter'd forces rally,
The old Fire King, ne'ertheless,
Holds his own, by rug and hearth—
Meets my menaces with laughter—
Drowns my agonies in mirth,
And I pelt both roof and rafter—
Storm the casement and the gable—
Yell the chimney throats adown—
Simulate the roar of Babel
Round the curtains of the Town;—
All in vain! Yet times there are
When Grace betwixt us twain is cast
Aside, and Mercy veils her Star,
And all God's Angels stand aghast;
For the fierce Soul of devilry
Is out at large, and Storm and Fire
Are knit for ruthless revelry,
Hung'ring to do the Fiend's desire.
Pity the ship and all its crew,
Be it a British Admiral,
And they who man it the true blue,
Which, on that night of Festival,

Crosses our pathway! Rather meet
The Vanguard of a rival Fleet
With triple force of turret power
Equipped and eager to destroy,
Than the fierce Rovers of the hour
Sworn to exhaust their cruel joy
In one great onset which shall yield
No traces of the Battle-field!

My bugler with his glittering horn
Is on the hills at break of morn—
At break of morn, while yet the West
Shews paling stars. The Lake is paved
With floor of glass—the rills enslaved—
Their silvery fountains in arrest.
Enamell'd are the meads deflower'd
With sapphires, and the slopes above
With clustering diamonds are dowered.
My jeweller Frost such gifts of love
Bestows; and who with loom or shuttle,
Or facet-saw and cunning tool,
Can imitate an art so subtle—
So subtle and so wonderful?

Upon the Lake, the roaring game
All yesterday, to dip of sun,
Was played, and boisterous the fun—
The bandied jest, the loud acclaim—

The cheering and the helping on,
With spur of voice and twirl of broom,
Towards its goal the laggard stone.

O curler! in your honest heart,
For much of nobler strife lies room—
For much that shews the better part—
For much of patriotic zeal—
For much of that true charity
Which casteth for the general weal!
I joy in your hilarity,
And gild the rigors of my reign
With free concessions—sympathies
Aloof from those to grief and pain
The due. In freezing, I unfreeze;
In chaining, silently unchain.

Enough! I am to Duty pressed;
My bugler slowly climbs the hill;
A dark cloud hovers in the West,
But darker passions stir my breast,
And goading then an Iron Will.
With flourish from his glittering horn
He ravisheth the ear of morn,
The prelude to a louder strain!
Not always I assert my reign
By hurricane or noisy rage—
Not always the wild winds uncage

At once, in sudden petulance;
But dally often, as the scene
From calm to storm I shift, and pause,
That man may learn how Nature's laws
Work for his good, and things terrene
Teach wisdom on the true incline,
Which, step by step, and line on line,
Leads upward to the Primal Cause.

Another blast my bugler blows,
But not with stinted breath,
Fearful to break the graves' repose,
Or stir the feud with Death.
Out ring the measures of his horn—
Clear as the eagle's cry at morn—
Loud as the summons to the charge
Which sets the long-enslaved at large.
Its wings, the dark cloud in the West
Extends, obedient to the call,
And manifests on every crest
The spreading of the sable pall.

Another, and a fiercer blast!
And from the uplands overcast,
And from the valleys and the glens,
And from the bowels of the fens,
And from the hidings of the cave,
And from the toilers on the wave,

And from the forest-heart retired,
A chorus, as of throats inspired,
Rolls forth in emulous reply,
And on its tide of sound retreat,
As if with tramp of equine feet,
The legions of the under-sky.
Squadron on squadron disappears,
And in its stead the luminous spears
Of a new legion meet the eye.
On every eminence and front
Of vantage, the supplanting host
Shews of a sudden; on the flanks
Of the great hills, and by the streams
That lave them, lo! stand serried ranks!

One Salvo more! its echoes fall
Smothered upon the listening ear,
Or only rise at interval
In token how the far and near
Are welded by the spell of sound,
And how a secret agency
Is aye at work, above, around,
And in God's forges under ground.

Out of the North, a Battle cry!
A yearning from the flow'ry South!
Which the true voice of Liberty?—
The shout from the defier's mouth,

Or the strong sobbing to be free
That by its restless energy
Looseneth the bonds of Tyranny?

I wave the Sceptre, and my hosts
Surge and resurge, deploy and wheel—
Show front of animated steel
A moment in the sun's brief glance,
And in the next a cloud of ghosts,
Bereft alike of helm and lance,
With howlings leads the grand advance.

When, and on what devoted head,
Shall I wreak vengeance? for my blood,
Long frozen and allied with the dead,
Boils and is eager as the flood
Which clouds and melting winds have moved
To overtake the bounds approved.

The Shepherd and his fleecy charge,
The simple watcher of the kine
Pasturing by the river's marge,
The Forest Ranger and the Deer
Under his ward and discipline,
Have well considered me, and steer
Their courses by my voice and sign.
The Eagle throned upon the crag,

The raven wheeling in the sky,
Acknowledge my uplifted flag,
And to my challenger reply.
Sounds come from places in whose heart
Silence had stored its mouldering urns;
And voices out of hollows start
To torture and affright the ear,
Or calm and ravish it, by turns.
Oh Spring! my long-imprisoned ward!
To whom redemption draweth near,
Consider how thy wooer woos—
How of his treasures (thou to choose)
The rarest are set forth, and how,
To win thine over-chaste regard,
He hath put all his energy
To task—the hand, the heart, the brow—
To keep dominion over thee!

Last effort this! I have made pact
With my Snow Queen, who, when she shews,
Attracts as Presences attract
Through whom the sacred ichor flows—
By virtue of her chastity,
By virtue of the calm repose
Befitting conscious sovereignty
That sits at ease upon her brows.

O consort mine! whom marriage vows

Bound to obedience, love, and honour,
Beseeching be in my behalf,
Or else commanding; for the staff
Fails me that propp'd—the sceptre, too,
Is heavy in my grasp; some few
Short hours are left us, and upon her,
When these are gone, the crown descends.
Give her thy token of amends;
Prepare the coronation Feast
And summon the anointing priest,
Bring all of thy regard to bear
On her, the adopted of my choosing,
As chaste, as royal, and as fair
As any shape in poet's musing;
Invest her with a robe of grace
Thou only can'st design and fashion,
Befitting faultless form, and face
Whose only fault is want of passion.

She lists, and listening obeys,
If 'tis obedience to command,
For, at the waving of her hand,
Are cast upon the waiting land
The tokens of her means and ways:
As moltings of angelic wings,
The down of cherubs, dropt in course
Of their celestial wanderings,
So, emblematic of their source

In the abodes of hallowed pleasure,
Descend the snow-flakes, all at leisure.

Alas! my throne is tottering!
Awry the crown! My Snow Queen's power
Dissolves with the dissolving hour;
And, yielding to the breath of Spring,
The Vestals in her train have doffed
Allegiance with the outer garb.
Hard natures are becoming soft,
And out of chastity superb
And cold, there emanates
The flow that bursts our crystal gates.

In vain, in vain, wind, sleet, and hail!
In vain the elemental war!
Nor drift nor cloud is of avail
To trouble her ascendant star!
The armies of my Snow Queen—where?
The mighty forces on the hill,
Assembled—sworn to do and dare—
That up to Heaven's own window sill
Clomb, and in shining phalanxes
Guarded the passes and the slopes—
Where are they? Scattered with my hopes—
Defeated—driven to the seas!

O Spring! Enchantress! spells thou hast

Surpassing the Magician's art—
Spells woven in a prisoned heart
That work out Liberty at last.
The law divine which sanction gave
To bind, prevails to ransom Thee;
So all great aimings to enslave
Provoke, alike from cell and grave,
The trumpet-shout of Liberty.

I take my turn: go free, fair Ward!
Go free, and scatter Earth with flowers,
Moisten and mellow it with showers!
Summer will come and parch the sward,
And wither up thy promised joys;
Summer will come, and stay the trill
Of the aspiring lark, unvoice
The merle, and disenchant both hill
And grove of all their winsome charms.
Summer will come, and by her arms
Encircled,—on her breast of fire,
Inhaling meretricious breath,
Consenting to an early death,
Thou, my true sweet-heart, wilt expire!

But I, when from the temperate zone
Driv'n by thy petulance and scorn,
Go back to an unchalleng'd throne
With my Snow Queen; nor eve nor morn

Prevail within the Arctic Ring:
Only the Phantom of a Spring
Flutters about our Palaces—
Mayhap, thine unappeased ghost
Let loose to wander with the lost!
No imprint marks the Frozen seas
Crossed by this pallid visitor,
The pressure of her foot shows not
In flowers or verdure any more;
Nor with its presence are there brought
Regalements to the ear and eye,
Nor perfumes of delicious kind
That savour of Virginity.
Yet in my inmost heart enshrined
A truer image I bear forth
To my bleak Empire in the North
Of thee, my long-imprisoned Ward;
And sitting on its desolate Throne,
My melting moods—and such there be,
When I float icebergs out to sea,
When I let brave explorers free,
And at God's bidding sacrifice
My will, and bow to the All-Wise—
Lead me, fair Spring! to muse on Thee.

In this wide Empire of mine own
My rule is absolute, and none,
Even the Fire King, dare intrude,

Much less my sovereignty dispute.
Summer in vain hath urged her suit,
And Autumn, tendering ruddy fruit,
Towards that realm of solitude
Presses in vain! On wall of brass,
In characters of adamant,
(Such cypher only angels plant),
Th' inscription runs—“Thou shalt not pass.”

On my high feast days, to caress
The footstool of our Monarchy,
Thousands of living creatures press—
A medley of strange courtiers,
Blending with suave docility
And tenderness the rude reverse;
In visage and demeanor strange,
Unlike the life of temperate range!

My wondrous realm, to be devoid
Of monsters would be incomplete,
And without homage at my feet
Tendered, a kingdom unenjoyed.

In these high court days, I let drift
The dancing waves, and winds untie
Made captive in my warrings south:
Not like old Boreas, rude and swift,
These breathings of a balmy mouth,

Nor like the billows of his wrath
Made animate with show of power
That fain would intercept my path,
Unwitting of their destiny
And the inevitable hour.

Go free, ye winds! ye waves, go free!
Mine is no court effeminate,
I care not to uphold my state
By craft of show or luxury,
I care not that sooth things, like you,
Should in my stately prisons pine,
And with soft flatteries incline
My servitors to play th' untrue;
Rather than that, take Liberty!
More welcome your release to me
Than the great peril and the cost
Which wait upon old customs cross'd,
And manners of simplicity
Perverted, fallen through, and lost.

With ransom I my festival
Combine, for ransom is delight,
The highest joy of conquering might—
The noblest pride of chivalry
Is the unloosing of the thrall!

Then gambol the great Whales, and lave
The footstool of my dazzling throne,
And Behemoth, with eyes of stone,
Watches them, crouching in his cave.
A thousand fountains are at play
On this hybernal holiday;
Ten thousand creatures urge their way
Towards the curtain of my shrine.
I welcome them, but make no sign!
The Walrus, with his wizard stare
And pendant tusks, the timorous Seal,
The subtle Fox, the Arctic Bear,
Surly and gruff, with teeth of steel—
All to my footstool come and kneel.

Waist-deep the Syren of the Sea
Reveals herself in woman's form,
Impersonating modesty:
Ubiquitous in calm or storm,
In sunny and in frigid clime,
Her pearly comb she ever plyeth
'Mong tresses of the softest silk,
Which o'er a bosom that defieth
In candour, ivory or milk—
Playing, choice morsels of delight
Reveal, and to warm thoughts incite.
And with this ravisher consort
As shapely forms, but chaste and cold,

Befitting more our Arctic court—
The Nereid, with her loves untold,
And vestal groups, whose faces scanned
Are impotent of all desire,
Repressive of the unlawful fire,
Yet win adorers at command.

Show there, the Triton and his conch,
With sturdy Mermen, ready aye,
When of my icebergs I make launch
To tender active fealty.
The Mermen these from whose blue eyne
The Sea Kings borrowed azurine—
Borrowed the cruel glare and sheen
Which in their fronts lay manifest;
As on the lowering thunder-cloud
Lie couch'd the tokens of unrest,
Ready with utterances loud,
And fiery tongues, at signal given,
To storm the embrasures of heaven.

O'er century hath roll'd century,
And generations of mankind
Have pass'd, I cannot call to mind
Their number, yet no change in me,
Or in my Polar Sovereignty!

There came among things animate,

In quest of plunder to my realm,
Once on a day, with brows elate
And eyes that gleam'd below scarr'd helm,
These Sea Kings. Forests had been fell'd
To build their ships, and demons yell'd
Round cauldrons and vast furnaces
In which the red ore fum'd and sung,
Which was to aid their ravages,
In shape of halbert and of mace,
And falchion and the barbed tongue
That points the shaft in war or chase.
For then the Scandinavian ore
Aspired not to take higher place
In the fierce strife of brotherhood,
Nor was to service put of yore,
As now, in engines terrible.

It was as yesterday review'd,
When their huge galleys hugg'd my shore,
Throng'd, poop and stern, with reivers fell.
A towering vessel led the van,
And at its helm a towering man,
Broad in the chest and limb'd therefrom
With arms, like spreadings of the oak,
Which centuries, under heaven's black dome,
Have sinew'd, and the thunder stroke
Only inured and fitter made
To wrestle with the fire and storm;

So jointed on his lofty form
These movers of the hands of might—
The red, right hand that grasped the brand—
The wary left that swayed the helm,
And toward the white ports of my realm
Steer'd, without asking or invite.

That Sea King's tale again was told
In modern time, and yet again!
New histories but repeat the old
Linked to the epochs of my reign.
One instance let suffice;—no need
To name the hero rashly bold.
Resolute both in creed and deed,
Who, in the cause of Science, braved
My power, and thought to break the spell
By which I held Earth's ends enslaved.
The secret of his fate to tell
Were to imperil my Arctic throne.
In darkness I shall keep my own—
Reign among silences profound.
Who over-vaults the appointed bound
Must rue th' offence. I, while I reign,
Shall reign supreme, and they who dare
Affront me, at their cost, I swear,
May do so once, but not again.

Prepare for me, ye temperate zones!

Autumn and Spring! I warning give—
One dying and the one to live!—
I shall sit 'twixt you on your thrones.
My Snow Queen and her brother Frost
Will with me, when I head the host
And Southward charge—shall go before
My Uhlans arméd to the teeth—
Sworn on the sword, without a sheath,
To halt not till their task is o'er.

Foremost, fierce Tempest, with command
To strip the gorgeous forests bare
To bend their lofty masts, and tear
Their plumes to shivers; so the land
Shall mourn, that vaunted of their power:
His errand, too, as I draw near,
To shake the temple and the tower,
And in high places cause to cower
The Mammon worshippers in fear!

Then Famine, a precursor oft
Of my approach, as often left
To work his will on the bereft,
Driven at my hands from cot and croft.
Not crueler than the bloated priest,
This willing messenger of mine;
He breaks no vow, he robs no shrine,
No glutton he, nor swills the wine
Blest on the altar at God's Feast.

Companion of this Uhlan gaunt,
More ghastly, but a speaking match,
Pacing together on the watch,
Together chanting the same chant,
Is Pestilence, by Summer nursed,
And fostered, on her royal demise,
In Autumn's arms, where burning skies,
Stretched o'er a land by War accurst,
Drink in the steams from fetid swamps
To sate Day's thirst and dim Night's lamps.

Thou renegade among my hosts!
I neither trust thee nor suspect;
I act the Wrecker, but the Wreck'd
Lie at thy mercy on Earth's coasts.
The Fire King has a pact with me,
When both of us have duty done,
To rear an altar to the Sun,
And on its red horns immolate thee!

To mount my Uhlans, I have cast
The compass round. Blest Araby,
The dreary steppes of Tartary,
The New World and its Prairies vast,
All fail me. Not the Emerald Jewel,
Nor England, for these riders cruel
Can to the saddle bring and rein
A fitting barb. I cast in vain

Over palatial parks; I make
Study in vain of pedigrees—
Take note of sweepstakes won with ease—
Consult in vain the wide-awake—
Descend to stable talk, and chaff
With trainers and the jockey crew.
Before such were, or were but few,
I lived, and on my side the laugh
Remained, when our select discourse
Turned on the merits of the Horse:—
For I had stridden Bucephalus
And Job's war charger in their day,
Had taken a turn on Pegasus—
Raced with the Centaurs—held my way
With Timour in his Tempest raide—
To Troy's disasters lent my aid,
And Hercules to his labour urged,
When he the Augean stables purged.
Many a time have I pursued
Across the Ukraine, for my sport,
Clouds of strong horses, when the feud
At highest was with Autumn lewd,
And the fierce spirit of retort.

Within the circle of my sway,
In places unapproachable
By man, where Night is ring'd with Day,
And all things lie below the spell

Of Frost, in crevasses and caves
Are stored the products of the chase.
There, life-like, in dissembled graves,
Draped by my Snow Queen, finds repose
The equine with the antlered race;
Not to recount my victories
O'er huger spoils, and lift the snows
That hide my glistening ivories.

Let these alone! I am in quest
Of chargers for my Uhlans three,
And I have cast from East to West,
From North to South, o'er Land and Sea
(One valley only left unsought),
Yet failed to find a fitting mount
For these wild servitors of mine.
The cost I care not for nor count;
Let rattle dice and gurgle wine—
Good! I begrudge them not.

In a valley never gladdened
By the passing of the sun,
In a valley overrun
With shadow, and by shadow saddened;
Chilly, silent, lonesome, eerie,
Travelled by a river weary,
That at every turns shews halt,
As if in its course at fault,

Pausing among passes dreary:
In that valley, all remote,
Shunn'd even by the fearless goat,
Where browse nor kine, nor deer, nor sheep,
Nor elephant nor antelope;
For with the sun-rays those of Hope
Penetrate not within its scope;
And all around is utter Sleep.
In that valley stands a tower,
One only—a grim structure, such
As in the days of feudal power
Braved Law, and in its robber clutch
Held, with immunity from toil,
Life, freedom, and ill-gotten spoil—
A grim old structure, loop-holed o'er,
Save in the basement, which betrays
Through narrow slits a dungeon floor,
Deep sunk, and under it a lower.

In that tower is a banqueting hall,
And the tables are spread, but every one
Of the guests around them, twelve in all,
Is a grinning, ghastly skeleton.
The tables were spread, I wot not when,
Where is the host to make thirteen?
And who the intruder that now and then
Peeps in, and with his fingers lean
Grasps the great goblet at the head,

And nods and quaffs, and forth is sped,
Like one in haste that cannot stay
The Feast out, but must mount and away?

Near to that tower is a courtyard: there
Are the stables I seek, and the training-ground
Of the steeds that will suit to a very hair
My Uhlans. The lord of the Manor round,
The lord of the Valley, the lord of the Feast,
'Tis true, is travelling in the East
With a strong retinue. What matter!
The leaner he grows his train shews fatter.
So generous is he, so foreseeing
Of my requirements, at his Tower,
Was left the message—“Brother Power!—
Part, but a sure Part in my Being—
Enter my stables—take your will
Of what you find! I warrant all—
Colts, three and four year olds. The rest
And refuse will have bidders still;
And were there none, the trumpet's call
And the war-saddle would make test
Of pedigree; but choose and take
The fittest—I no bargain make,
Save that you give them work to do,
And spur and whip and high halloo.
It boots not of their dams to inquire,
Enough to know who is their Sire,

And who I am, and whence I sally!
Their Sire is the Pale Horse—I, Death,
His Rider, Monarch of the Valley!
Speak of Us in an under-breath:
We have the gift—My Horse and I—
No Pope can claim—Ubiquity,
And with his breed in part remains
This virtue latent in their veins.
Choose for thine Uhlans what thou wilt,
And welcome! Thou of the icy breath!
The Valley of the Shadow of Death
Is open as the day to thee.
Only the hardened sons of guilt
Tremble before Sin's Eldest-born.
My valley is of Terrors shorn
To those who trust in Calvary.
Come, Brother Winter! sound thy horn,
'Twill fright the Beldame at the gate
That guards the avenue of Fate,
So thou may'st enter in thy state,
And with my ready stud make free.”

A blear-eyed crone, a fangless hound
Keep ward behind the rusty gate,
Through which the dolorous Estate
Of Death is entered. Round and round
Whirl spectres. An approach to sound,
And, as it were, sound's shadow, fills

The ear—a whispering indistinct,
To which the muttering of the crone
And creaking of the hinge are linked,
And wail and shriek, and moan and groan,
And the old bandog's snarl. Even rills
Seem to be tinkling, and the ring
Of distant bells is on the wing,
With every sound below the sun,
As 'twere, resolving into one
Dread Silence, overpow'ring, strange,
Such as is meetest to express
Th' expiry of all sounds—their change—
And hurrying towards forgetfulness.

Up the avenue I sweep
Without challenge at the gate;
The old Beldame is asleep,
Snoring, mumbling, muttering,
Under spell of opiate;
And the bandog feigns a spring
From his antiquated barrel—
Tristful shakes his mangy jowls—
Vents a wind-up to his snarl
In three melancholy howls!

As I hurried up the Vale
Many the strange sights I saw—
Passed by many a shadow pale

Under sentence of the Law—
Many a shivering ghost—King, Peer,
And Peasant, Millionaire and Pauper—
Poet and Sage and Cavalier;
The Harlot and the Madame proper—
The Reverend—Very Reverend
Who prophesied the round world's end,
But of his own knew nothing—read,
Even as a dead man to the dead,
God's Gospel, and discoursed of Grace
And Glory with a brazen face,
As if he held, direct from Heaven,
Authority to bless or curse,
And privilege to fill his purse
By dispensations—ay! and worse,
To make belief of sins forgiven
By power of priestly intercession—
The cost, a plenary confession,
With recognition of the Host,
And altar-gifts beyond all cost.

Among the trooping ghosts, I pass'd
None so disconsolate as those
Who gold and lordships had amass'd,
At sacrifice of life's repose
Had toiled and sweated to the end—
Cast kindred overboard and friend—
Love's torch extinguished—not an aim

Had, beyond adding to and keeping—
Sneer'd at the Scholar, sneer'd at Fame—
Reproach'd themselves as over-sleeping
Their opportunity for gain
When Nature needed sleep. In vain
The knowledge—“Naked to the Earth
Whence naked came ye at your birth,
Mortals! ye shall return.” Alas!
The strange delusion! that shall pass
With them into the World to come
Their many hoardings—crust and crumb!
No marvel, on my way I read
The panic in their faces—spelt,
Letter by letter, the expression dread
Of a great, sudden anguish felt
To the heart's core—a stroke that told
On Reason, making dross of gold.
The thunder-bolt upon their god
Had fallen, and with the idol crushed
Its worshippers—the pæan hushed—
And all the voices of applaud
That made divine the yellow clod.

Of these there was no end of ghosts!
The flakes my Snow Queen letteth drive
In her impatient moods, were nought,
When number'd up, to the great hosts
That issued from the Money Hive,

And in death's dolorous Valley sought
Their smitten credit to revive.

I pass'd, moreover, in that ride
Of Mystery, the shades sedate
Of Mortals who had hugg'd with pride
The notion they could master Fate.
Among these there were Kings discrown'd
And sceptreless—their counsellors—
Their pimps and executioners—
The captains of their host renowned,
Stript of their stars and medals, all,
Under an impulse past control,
Mixed with the common herd—on way
To where the sifting shall take place,
And the allotting of dismay—
The second Death which Judgment Day
Apportions with its gifts of Grace.

I, Winter—an appalling Power,
Who in my rage am merciless,
And care not whether Man or Flower,
Army or Orchard, meet distress—
Appalled was in this trying hour!

Onward to the Stables I press'd,
But halted oft in wonderment,
Oft in compulsion; for the bent

Of the dark Vale was a puzzle at best!
Like a huge Python's trail it lay,
Its river running neither way,
Making no sound, but a smother'd moan—
Shewing no life or colour-tone:
Only at intervals there shot
Across it an uncertain glare,
Bituminous and deadly hot,
That stirred the curtains of the air,
But scarcely stirred. Its lurid glare
Reveal'd the surface of the stream
Studded with bubbles heavily;
Not the bright foam-bells, such as I
Transmute, when in my humours fond,
To emerald and diamond,
But baleful ebullitions, bred
In slimy depths where rot the dead.

On as I press'd, the fetid fumes,
As of discharg'd torpedoes, vex'd
My nostrils; gloomier grew the glooms,
Wilder the road, and more perplex'd!
I awful caverns passed and chasms,
From which peep'd dragons belching fire,
And faces writhing under spasms,
And eyes of terror where desire
Had dwelt, and still its spirit dwells,
Like the waves' voice in empty shells.
Goblins and visages of dread

Encounter'd me at every turn;
These wanting, obelisk or urn
Or gloomy cypress shewed instead.
Crept from their ambush to my feet
Gaunt crocodiles and lizards vast,
The slimy creatures of the Past,
Fabulous pronounced or obsolete:
The Kraken, Kelpie, Water Witch,
Sea Serpent, and the Worm of Dole,
That gnaw'd the vitals of the Soul,
And left the body in the ditch.

All hideous things and loathsome cross'd
My path—the deadly rattlesnake,
Cobra, puff-adder, and in wake
Of these, their victim's writhing ghost!

On as I press'd the horrors grew.
Huge vampires flitted by me, ghouls—
Terrible birds, with eyes like owls',
But crueler; and as I drew
Nigh to Death's Castle, there rushed out
To greet me its grim sentinel,
The Were-Wolf, with a savage yell.
A troop of tigers hung about,
And fain would spring, their famished eyes
Fix'd on me, but I wav'd them back,
And they slunk, shivering, jungle-wise,
And left me to pursue my track.

Strange lights are gliding to and fro
In the Castle of Death as I draw near.
From the loop-holes and the dungeon slits
Banners are hung in scribed with Woe,
Judgment, Eternity, and Fear;
The fiery flashing comes in fits
And reads them—the Escutcheon reads,
And its devices—shews aloof
The great black Flag that o'er the roof
Of highest battlement outspreads
Its drapery. A hundred creeds,
Each torn into a hundred shreds,
The sable folds o'erhang. The tents
And violated tenements
Of Trillions of Immortal Souls,
Loves, Hatreds, and Desires, are all,
Under the Shadow of that Pall,
Committed to the moles.

As I drew nearer, under daze
Of the strange sights that met my eye,
While yet in silence and amaze
I ponder'd on the mystery,
A sound stole on the ear of neighing—
The neighing of high-mettled steed
In distant stable, and the baying
Of hounds in kennel at their feed;
My errand, nigh forgotten, came

All suddenly to mind. I threw
The daze off, and the terror too,
Link'd with the Valley's ominous name,
And on I strode the Castle past
Towards the courtyard where were housed
The fav'rites of the stud. At last
I reach'd the entrance, and aroused
The ancient Master of the Horse.

A surly-visaged bully he,
No limner could have etched a worse
Ideal of Iniquity.
Brows scowling over eyes oblique
And sinister—a livid cheek
Gashed to the bone—nose hammer'd in—
Contorted lips, on which the sneer
Held turn with a malicious grin;
More loathing caus'd the shape than fear;
Wen and wry-neck'd, hunch-back'd, splay-footed,
And bandy-legged. No doubt, he suited
His office well, and did the work
Of his employer without shirk.

A mock obeisance, cap in hand,
He made, and whistled on his staff.
Responding with an eldritch laugh
There started up the goblin band,
One, two, three, four, five, six, aye! seven,
Rare specimens of imp and ape!

Contained the like nor earth nor heaven,
In cast of feature and in shape.
Moon-faced, globe-headed, goggle-eyed,
Lean, spindle-shank'd, and what beside?—
The special grooms that in the Stable
Of Death had groom'd the Pallid Horse
On the dire morn that Cain slew Abel,
And, like a shadow, crept Remorse
Behind the slayer Earth's whole length—
Growing in terror and in strength
The further from the stricken corse.

I heard a snorting and a tramping—
A neighing, vigorous and shrill—
The noise as of a squadron camping
At eve of battle when the chill
Sets in; for the War furor stretches
Beyond the Camp where council grave
Is held, and its infection catches
Oft times the Horse, and in the watches
Of Night, with other instincts, blends
The sense that he fulfils his ends
In dying, like his rider—brave!

With his lean finger he beck'd me on,
The surly Master of the Horse,
Nor spake, but took direct his course
Towards an archway, dark as throat
Of dragon, where a skeleton

Paced to and fro; and from a moat
In front, by narrow drawbridge cross'd,
The shimmering came of snakes afloat,
Twisted into a cable. At its post,
On either side the drawbridge, stood a ghost!
A beck from the master!—a leer and grin
From the Goblin grooms; and away they skip
Helter skelter, with brandished whip,
Across the drawbridge—scamper and spin—
Sidle and hop, and twirl and twist,
And shake their moon faced noddles gravely.
Marry! I wist
They are doing the honours bravely
To the strange guest of the Terror King!

My surly guide, I following,
Confronts at his appointed post
The warder on this side the Moat—
An affable and simple ghost,
As was his fellow opposite.
I tendered him a shining groat,
But he declined, with bow polite,
To accept it, and to pass made way
Along the drawbridge for my guide
And me. The moat below us lay
A vast way down, but I descried,
Revolving in the deep profound,
What seemed a fiery cable. Round

And round it spun, with wildering speed,
And threw out light enough to read
Its nature by. From basilisks' eyne
Flashed fitfully the electric sheen.
The seeming cable shewed instead
A mass of serpents interlaced
One with the other—tail and head—
Warp, strand, and tissue, every thread
Alive and writhing—chasing, chased—
Devouring, and in turn devour'd!
Before me was the mystery
Of Life in Death, most strange to see!
I halted on the Bridge, and fell
A pondering on the Terrible
In time and in Eternity,
When suddenly the whisper “Coward!”
Rous'd me. Who utter'd it I sought
In my guide's face to know; but there,
So far as I could see, lay nought
Which gave a pretext to infer
Whence sprang the insult; yet the word
Moved me—moved ready hand to sword!—
An icebolt gathered to my eye,
Which, in the levelling, shewed force
Against the Master of Death's Horse.
To hurl it were expenditure
Of Power upon a curry-comb—
A churl who hugg'd his sinecure

And vision of obliquity;
Otherwise, to have sent it home
Not Death himself could have hinder'd me!

Again the snorting and the neighing
Of horses, and of hounds the baying,
Told of the Stables and Kennels at hand.
The Ghosts that kept ward o'er the fiery Moat
Escorted us on and did the bland,
Until we drew near to the gloomy throat
Of the archway—where, their errand done,
They vanished, and the skeleton
Stalked forward to salute us.

The goblin grooms preceding us set up
The view halloo among a rush of bats,
Whose leathern wings made tempest of its kind,
As through the dismal archway we advanced,
Until the courtyard, circled by Death's stables,
Brought to a sudden halt. Meanwhile, the neighing,
Snorting, and plunging, and all equine sounds
Imaginable, kept the ear distraught.
Fiercer and more insufferable grew
The wild distraction, when there came to play
Part in the discord many strident voices—
A Bell that had done duty in its day,
Chiming out joys at merry festival,
Tolling out griefs at woful funeral—
Crack'd now, yet armed with a conceited tongue

That would its bygone virtues still extol!
A Trumpet that had rallied to the fight,
And startled slumbering Nations with its voice,
Which Fame had lifted to her burning lips
And pour'd her soul through—batter'd, out of shape!
A Hunting Horn, which, erst by Nimrod winded,
Had urged to the hot chase and stirred to life
The echoes of the uplands—gnarled with rust!
A Lute with broken strings—an Organ sacked
Of its grand thunder-store—a muffled Drum,
A Bag-pipe repossessed by seven devils
Worse than the first that wail'd ands hriek'd and skirled,
And puff'd and snorted, drawl'd and dron'd in turn—
An old used-up Cremona, with its ribs
Staved in, and the rich soul of music,
Emprison'd in it as by sorcery,
Run out. By report it was the same
That Paganini won his laurels by;
And now a very mouse might parody it,
And the vile screech-owl, as a rival, start,
More versed in Melody. Such were the sounds
And such the Instruments that welcomed me
To Death's dread Stables! Such the Orchestra—
Instructed to do honour to Death's Guest!

Emerging from the Archway to the Courtyard,
All suddenly, as by a flash of magic,

I lost sight of the Master of the Horse
And Goblin escort; and instead was faced
By Tempest, Famine, and foul Pestilence,
My clamorous Uhlans! How they had passed up
The Valley, in advance of me, half puzzled;
But three huge chargers rolling on their backs
In agony, their nostrils spurting blood,
With foam commingled, and their hoofs flung up,
A story told of speed and sacrifice.

In light of a good Augury my Uhlans
Regarded the disaster—plumed themselves
On its acceptance as an offering
Made to the Shadowy King, and with each other
Laid odds on the requital. I devoured
The marrow of their talk as one that reads
Resistlessly the pages of Romance,
And with its spirit becomes identified.
Auxiliary to my intents were theirs,
And I, by nod and gesture, gave approval.

At a right angle from its first direction,
All suddenly, the dialogue diverged
And settled on the merits of Death's Horse.
It was a rare discussion, out of which
Eliminated strange conclusions
Regarding origin and pedigree
And the descendants of the pallid Charger.

All knew the Sire, for he had crossed them oft
In hunting and in battle field alike,
In earthquake, conflagration, hurricane,
In city, desert, and the rolling sea;
But his descendants none had seen or known.
Heretofore—so I learnt from their discourse—
They had been reckoned fabulous, and classed
With Centaurs and Chimeras. Was it so?

The dialogue went on. To the turn it came
Of Pestilence to speak—the hated Uhlan
Condemn'd, by pact, to grace the Altar's horns!
Astride the carcase of his horse he sate,
And with sepulchral voice and loathly breath
Declaimed, in terms of fulsome eulogy,
Touching the grisly Monarch of the Valley.
Discarded parasites speak highly oft
Of their discarders, on a shift of tenure,
So spake this skulk in eulogy of Death.
And this the wind-up of his narrative—
Its purpose I divined—to disaffect
His brother Uhlans, and make mutiny.
But Tempest backed me up, and Famine took
A neutral part. The incident described
Is one of many such that have taken place,
And will take place until the end of Time.

“He smote and smote, in front, to right and left,
And when, in very centre of the Smiter,

A shell exploded, meant to annihilate,
Unscorched, intact, and imperturbable,
In front, to right and left, the Rider smote!
A hedge of corpses lay on either side,
Forming a lane, on furthest end of which
Upheaved, upheaving, showed a mound of dead
So high and so impracticably broad,
In every sense deterrent to the nerve,
None could have pushed beyond it, but the One;
And He—the Double-He—the Horse and Rider,
At easy vault th' obstruction over-topped,
And away passed, to enact the massacre
Upon another stage. I, Pestilence,
As was my duty, with my Ghouls and Vultures,
Pitched Tent and hoisted up the Yellow Flag.”

Scarce had the loathly Uhlan finished speech,
When re-appeared the Master of the Horse
Beckoning to the stables. I in front
Dispersed, by virtue of my icy breath,
The thousand maladies in spectral form
Way-laying our approach. A sudden turn
Brought into view a Churchyard vast—so vast
That all the prairies of the Western World,
The Afric deserts, and the howling wastes
That hug my frontiers, blended into one,
Were nothing to this camp of burial.
So vast! my ken distinguished no horizon,

No boundary, yet here and there a speck
In the far distance—a Necropolis,
Obelisk, mausoleum, monument—
So I divined; and here and there a patch
Of sable timber—Upas, Yew, and Cypress—
Under whose ghastly cover toad-stools shew'd,
And noxious creatures sputtered out their venom
To feed the hemlocks and rank parasites.
All this by apprehension I divined.

What most attracted in this Churchyard vast
Were the great clouds of horses; some at feed,
Grazing in quiet; some in full career,
Scouring the flats or bounding up the heights;
Legion their number! all the cavalries
Of the contending kingdoms of the Earth
Could challenge no comparison. The waves
Beating upon a thousand capes and headlands
Came nearer to the mark. Astonishment
Stood out upon the faces of my Uhlans,
And questioning looks were levelled at the guide.
No answer but a curt, derisive laugh
He deigned, and beckon'd onwards to the Stables.

[_]

(Interpart omitted.)

The cribs in Death's dread Stables are but seven,
And of these seven but six were occupied.

The empty one, more roomy than the others,
No token in its furnishings revealed
By which to guess when it was last in use.
Seven eyeless masks on seven rusty pegs—
The staves and parted girdings of a pail—
A mop, a pitchfork, and a curry-comb,
And in the rack a mouldy wisp of hay
My glance took in, with other equine gear
And musty provender; no date of when
The going forth! no preparation made
To welcome back the Rider and his Steed.
A leaden chill pervaded the compartment
That more benumbed than does my coldest breath;
Such as inhales the Walrus in his cave,
And Kraken, when he tugs my Icebergs out.
It grasped the heart, as with a hand of steel,
And all its ducts and arteries choked up;
The brain it petrified, and, as it were,
Let fall a curtain o'er the throne of Thought.

Upon my Uhlans' faces I descried
The working of a great spasmodic shock—
Strange corrugations—twistings of the features—
A death approached of all Intelligence!

Out of this stall we hurried with all speed,
The groom in charge not bidding us to stay,
Rather, by gesture, hasting our retreat.

No guessing needed it, no setting forth
By an interpreter, into whose crib,
Armed with authority, we had set foot!

I watched the Master,
He watching me with an assiduous eye,
Knave in the grain—a murderous, scheming knave!
He knew his vantage-time, but I beforehand
Took him at vantage, and waved back my Uhlans,
Else it had cost them dear, and, as it was,
Staggering, they reached the threshold of the den.

With freer breath towards the neighbouring stall
We stepped. The daggers, strange to say!
Which on our Guide's face hitherto had gleam'd,
All of a sudden became snugly sheathed,
And the impassive clods of his reticence
Gave way unto a garrulous exordium,
Touching the charger under our review.

The moon-faced goblin at his elbow chuckled,
And drank in every word the Master spake,
As if it were a vinous compliment
Paid to himself and his discharge of trust.

“This is a Horse! look to it, Ancient!
And you nigh smother'd in the crib hard by!
The telling picture of a thorough-bred!

Examine him. His teeth are all entire;
You can't pronounce him aged on this score;
Nor is it an objection that they shew
A cannibal propensity. His grand-dam
The favourite mare was in the dainty stalls
Of Diomede, the quondam King of Thrace,
Whom doughty Hercules was charged to brain—
Him and his stud! Horses were epicures
In those brave days, and fed on fattened babes.
Such fare gave wind and muscle, speed and mettle.
Look to it, Ancient! how this Horse is fashioned!
His pasterns upright and his fetlocks curt,
Lash-legg'd and round, but bony in the knees,
Neck long, and like a galley's prow upreared;
Ample the eye and black, the ear high-prick'd
But small, proportion taken into account,
The forehead large and lean, the withers sharp
And pointed, deep the flanks and bulging out;
Of ample belly, warded well with rib—
Short in the back and even—double-chined—
Thighs long and large, but muscular withal—
The truncheon aptly couched, and well set on—
Mane narrow-ridg'd, not scant, nor yet redundant—
This is the Horse before you, my most Ancient!
The colour you object to? liver-coloured;
'Tis an objection of some force, I admit.
The feeding of his grand-dam may account for't;
But blood makes blood, and the high colour showing

On the outside betokens pedigree—
The dam and not the sire predominates.
Our wholesome custom is to sink the Sire.
More than enough of Him is prevalent
Hereabouts, and we send to grass out yonder
(Pointing in the direction of the churchyard)
The colts that take to him too partially.
This is no school for horses of that sort,
Which cast no shadow, and no hoof-tracks shed;
But come, my hearties—by your looks, I guess,
This limb of the renowned Androphagi
Is not in favour—on the round we'll go,
And what we have in ward and keeping show.”

In the next crib there stood a Horse superb,
And black as coal from tip of ear to hoof,
That knew instinctively of our approach,
Nor neighed nor pranced, nor demonstration made
Of joy or terror, but with stately front
Regarded us in equine dignity.
He needed no laudation from the Guide,
So patent were his merits at all points.
A grander Stallion, save his Pallid Brother,
And He not grander, only more empower'd—
More favour'd, more in keeping with the Rider—
Ne'er shewed since headstrong Phæton took in hand
To guide the flaming chariot of the sun,
Deeming himself an expert with the reins.

Upon that day of retribution dire,
When from his rack of fire-bolts, Jove, incensed,
The deadliest snatched, by Mulciber devised
For special paroxysms, and with aim
Vindictive hurled it at the hapless youth.
Of the unwonted violence of the stroke
Partook the frantic coursers, Phlegon most,
Once purple-hued, but by the charring fumes
Made black as Erebus. From Phlegon sprang,
As the great-grandsire of his sable dam
(For sable ruled immaculate, from tip
Of ear to hoof, throughout the whole descent)
The Horse before us. During the Eclipse
Which shrouded Heav'n and Earth—thatsin'ster hour,
When with a clang the gates of Paradise
Closed on the outcast pair—first of the race
Of Mortals—on that hour, Tradition saith,
Were foaled, outside the forfeited domain,
Twin Steeds—the one the pallid Steed of Death!
The other stands before us in his dread,
The grander of the Twain, but not the chosen,
Nor deemed the fittest for the Smiter's work!

Tradition saith, 'twas in a cavern
Close by the gate through which the outcasts fled,
This double birth took place. Were gather'd there
A concourse of foreshadowed demigods,
In the expectancy of something dread,

Which would imperil their verity of being—
Concuss and jumble epochs, dates delete,
And to perdition hurl Mythology.
The Lapithæ, Theseus, and Hercules,
Bellerophon and winged Pegasus—
The Centaur Chiron, and grim Steropes,
The Cyclop who at Lemnos ruled the forge,
And shod the saffron horses of the Morn—
The Gemini and other monstrous shapes
That came from tampering of the Heaven with Earth,
Divinities with gross humanities,
And intercourse of more unnatural sort;
Such forms were there made heroes by the brain
Of those who deeply drank of Hippocrene,
Or the strong waters freighted from the North,
To which the seasoned juices of the grape,
Be it Falernian or of Cretan growth,
Put in comparison, are whey of milk—
A dullard's drink provocative of drivel.

Seemed presence-struck himself, the while he gave,
Touching this horse's pedigree and birth,
A rambling narrative, our surly Guide!
Nor did its subject deign to notice him,
Until he ventured on disparagement
Of his twin brother, and a contrast drew
In fulsome terms in favour of the listener;
Then with his hoof right angrily the charger

Pawed, and the flinty pavement underneath
A spray of scintillating fire threw up;
And when renewed was the comparison,
Again he pawed, and with distended nostril,
Out from the crib to courtyard and to camp
Of burial, far, sent forth a neigh of fury,
Which made the grazers start, the scourers halt,
And reached, so told me a responsive neigh,
The ear of the Pale Horse. Death's ear impassive,
Ay! and impervious to all flattery,
Was taken for the moment by assault,
Else had been no return of compliment,
So I divined. The Battle news which ranged
Along the wires that night was terrible,
And spoke to the extinction of a Nation.

Such admiration did the sable Horse
Excite, the Uhlan Tempest stood astonied,
Famine expressed his wonder open-mouthed,
And Pestilence made muttering to himself
Of Vivisection and the Rinderpest.

I noted how the Master of Death's Stud
Watched them, and read the expression of their thoughts,
And how in turn he scanned my immobile face,
As if some scrap of scripture might o'erpass it
That he could take advantage of. At length,

Baulk'd of the sought-for opportunity,
But trusting to the die, he signall'd for
The moon-faced groom to lead the sable steed
Out to the Courtyard, so Death's favoured guest
Might scrutinise his points and give a judgment.

The Urchin knew his charge, his charge knew him,
And needed neither coaxing nor the halter,
But readily, his ire being pacified,
Stepp'd out with head erect, proud as a Czar!
Approached him first, the Uhlan Pestilence,
In hound-like posture, sniffing like a hound
Intent on carrion; his cadaverous brow
Lit up with a malign expectancy.
At venture out he jerked his hideous arms,
Swivell'd on which were hands of cruel cast,
Set off with digits, wiry, crooked, lean,
Adapted to the practice of the Thug,
Or skilled garotter from the murder-dens
Of some great city on the rove let loose.

Of his officiousness I made rebuke,
But he excused it, as a proof of zeal,
And gave me to imagine he was versed
In all the parts and bearings of the horse;
His judgment did me service, he implied,
Nor further cared I to dispute his humour;
For in the Charger's ample eye, I read

A dangerous something that sufficed to show
The lack of grace in which my Uhlan stood,
And in what peril, should he presumptuously
Lay hand upon the bridle (for the Horse,
As if by magic, in the courtyard showed
In harness deft, caparisoned and shod,
Ready for action at some rider's beck,
But who the rider was, a riddle still!)
Nor did the varlet fail himself to note
The dangerous glitter of the equine eye,
And, deeming it were best to be discreet,
Avoided it, but not escaped the scorn
That flashed upon him, and the loathing shewn,
Which smote his inner consciousness the more,
That not by endowed speech it was exprest,
But by the instincts of a quadruped.

The Uhlan Famine made his venture next,
And press'd, but with subdued effrontery,
His gaunt and ghastly presence into view.
With quiet scorn the Horse regarded him
As one he could annihilate with scorn,
But cared not to lose virtue on account of.
Without more effort, his disdain availed
To cow my ill-appointed servitor,
And back he slunk. No mount this Horse for him!

Tempest the while stood grandly in the background

Communing with the Master; in a whisper
The one the other sounding, as those do
With Stable-craft familiar—not a doubt!
Nevertheless, some shew of merriment,
At the repulse of Pestilence and Famine,
Took place betwixt them; and the sable steed,
On the dismissal of his noisome suitors,
Encouraged it, neighing disdainfully—
Tossing his tail about and glossy mane—
Pawing, yet not with fury as before,
But in a coaxing manner, his full eye
Fixed on the Uhlan Tempest, as the eye
Would of an ardent soldier on the Chief,
In whose advance was victory assured
That led to highest meed of proud renown.

On revelation of this equine fancy,
The Uhlan Tempest, with an oath abrupt,
And at a stride or two, betokening scorn
Of his adviser, to the steed drew near,
Which, in its own way, gave encouragement
And opportunity to grip the bridle;
Nor did he hesitate a pulse's beat
To take advantage of the proffer'd honour;
But, ere the pulse's beat had well expired,
Was firm in saddle, as an oak on the earth,
Or Pharos stablished by the hand of might
And compassing around of thought with thought

In centre frantic of conflicting seas.
A great delight it was, and overjoyed me,
Casting aside the terrors and the horrors
Of my strange journeying through the silent valley,
To note the overjoy of Steed and Rider,
And how at once they took to being one—
One in the purpose, one in the desire,
Both as one shape, to execute my will.

Neighed forth the Horse a neigh of exultation,
Expressive of redemption from Death's Crib
And jubilant welcome to its swarthy Rider.
A neigh responsive quickly caught the ear,
And ere it died away the Sable Horse,
Bearing my faithful Uhlan, disappeared;
And a fierce wind arose that fluttering set
The awful Flag upon Death's fortalice,
And from the hall of banquetting evoked
The rattling of dry bones. Let Pestilence
Shift for himself, and Famine for himself!
There yet remain four cribs unvisited
From which to choose their mounts. I'm in no hurry
To have their service. Meantime, they may go,
Play pitch and toss with the dare-devil Master,
Or take a turn at skittles with his grooms.
Only let Famine be on the alert,
For I shall summon him by Trumpet blast
At hands of Tempest when the Siege is pressed,

And there are breaches in the city walls.
Pestilence, the skunk, may go, make terms with Summer
All through the dog-days. . . . Meanwhile,
Upon my fav'rite Uhlan's track I press.

Farewell! O Death, my Brother!
Farewell! O Sin, thy Mother!
Farewell, O Valley dread—
And thy abhorrent river!
Farewell! ye Shades that tread
Toward that Valley's head!
Farewell, farewell, for ever!