Classic Poem

Then hark again! The human hunt begun,
The ringing hoop, the hunter's cheering cry;
Round and around, by sand, and cave, and steep,
The doubtful ban-dogs, undulating, sweep.

At length, one windeth where the wave hath left
The unguarded portals of the gorge, and there,
Far-wandering, halts; and from a rocky cleft,
Spreads his keen nostril to the whispering air;
Then, with trailed ears, moves cowering o'er the ground,
The deep bay booming breaks:—the scent is found.

Hound answers hound—along the dank ravine
Pours the fresh wave of spears and tossing plumes;
On—on; and now the idol-shrine obscene
The dying pine-brand flickeringly illumes;
The dogs go glancing through the shafts of stone,
Trample the altar, hurtle round the throne.

Where the lone priest had watched, they pause awhile,
Then forth, hard-breathing, down the gorge they swoop.


Foremost rode Harold, on his mailed breast
Cranched the strong branches of the groaning oak.
Hark, with full peal, as suddenly supprest,
Behind, the ban-dog's choral joy-cry broke;
Led by the note, he turns him back to reach,
Near the wood's marge, a solitary beech.

Clear space spreads round it for a rood or more;
Where o'er the space the feathering branches bend,
The dogs, wedged close, with jaws that drip with gore,
Growl o'er the carcass of the wolf they rend.
Shamed at their lord's rebuke, they leave the feast—
Scent the fresh foot-track of the idol-priest;

And, track by track, deep, deeper through the maze,
Softly they go—the watchful Earl behind.
Here the soft earth a recent hoof betrays;
And still a footstep near the hoof they find;—
So on, so on—the pathway spreads more large,
And daylight rushes on the forest marge.

The dogs bound emulous; but, snarling, shrink
Back at the anger of the Earl's quick cry;—
Near a small water-spring, had paused to drink
A man half clad, who now, with kindling eye,
And lifted knife, roused by the hostile sounds,
Plants his firm foot, and fronts the glaring hounds.

‘Fear not, rude stranger,’ quoth the Earl in scorn;
‘Not thee I seek; my dogs chase nobler prey.’

The fierce Earl chafed, but longer not delayed;
For what he sought the earth itself made plain
In the clear hoof-prints; to the hounds he showed
The clue, and, cheering as they tracked, he rode.

But thrice, to guide his comrades from the maze,
Rings through the echoing wood his lusty horn.
Now o'er waste pastures where the wild bulls graze,
Now labouring up slow-lengthening headlands borne,
The steadfast hounds outstrip the horseman's flight,
And on the hill's dim summit fade from sight.

But scarcely fade, before, though faint and far,
Fierce wrathful yells the foe at bay reveal.
On spurs the Saxon, till, like some pale star,
Gleams on the hill a lance—a helm of steel.


Below the mount, recoiling, circling, move
The ban-dogs, awed by the majestic rest
Of the great foe; and, yet with fangs that grin,
And eyes that redden, raves the madding din.