The king has busked him forth to ride
All on his steed so brown—
He’s halted him by the standing stone
To see the sun sink down.
And is it the moan of the mourning pine
Doth in his ear complain?
The wizened bough of the lean thorn-tree
That clutches his bridle-rein?
He looks, and knows the grisly witch
That wears the grey wolf-skin—
“Ruth, ruth, oh king, on the deadly wrong
That’s wrought thy realm within!
“Thou hast taken a wife of alien life
From far beyond the sea;
And she’s brought in a foreign faith
To flout thy gods and thee.{46}
“The kirk-bell rings, the pale priest sings,
By thorpe and tower and town—
The black rood stands with arms spread wide
Where of old the blood ran down.
“The carven stone stands drear and lone—
And the old gods in their pain
Rave high and wail in the winter gale
And sob in the running rain.
“Harken and hear—for I crouched this eve
Where thistle and dock grow tall,
And I saw her steal from the postern-gate
And creep by the palace-wall.
“She’s off and away to the lonely kirk
To keep a cursèd tryst;
She’s taken thy son, to be bound for aye
A slave to the wan White Christ.”
The king he rides by holt and heath,
The witch goes on before,
By the carven stone on the moorland lone
Where the blood ran down of yore.
Oh, wan was the glint of the misty moon
In the brimming burn, and shrill
The wind it wailed in the lean thorn-trees
That crouch upon the hill.{47}
“The font is dight, the taper bright,
I hear the sound of prayer—
Lest I be banned with bell and book
I dare not enter there.”
All lily-white the fair queen stood—
In strode the angry king—
“Thy God is thine, but my son is mine,
And I will not have this thing!”
White as a lily-flower, the queen
Fell down upon her knee—
“Have pity, have pity, thou cruel king,
On the souls of mine and me!”
The pale priest stood before the rood,
His look was proud and grim—
“Stand back, unshriven! the King of Heaven
Doth claim the babe for Him!”
Most like the wail of a winter gale
The grisly witch laughed loud—
“The christening-robes are white enow
To serve as a goodly shroud!”
She’s witched his arm, she’s witched his heart,
She’s witched his blade so true,
She’s cast the glamour o’er his eyes,
The deadly deed to do.{48}
The king, he drew his trusty brand,
And clove him to the chin—
“Short shrift at least is thine, proud priest,
Thy God His grace to win!”
Alas! alas! for the bloody chrism
The king’s son got that day!
For the queen fell down at the self-same stroke
Nor turned not where she lay.
He’s seized his young son in his arms,
And busked his steed to flee;
Like a crooked shadow the grisly witch
Runs ever beside his knee.
With laughter shrill she’s by him still
While the misty moon grows dim—
Ere he can cross the running burn
She’s reft the babe from him.
Where the priests of eld high worship held
The witch-wife laughs alone;
“The babe she bore shall learn my lore,
And dance by the carven stone!”
The tapers’ light is quenched in night—
Hushed is the holy bell—
The pale priest’s blood is on the rood—
The old gods have their will.
. . . .
{49}
Now on a day when years are gone
The knights they rise apace—
For the sound of the horn in the dim red morn
Has called them to the chase.
The gaunt grey wolf-hounds growl and grin,
And the king is at their head—
His face is white in the breaking light
As the face of one new-dead;
His voice is hollow as one that cries
In a dreary vault of stone;
And, on thin lips, his smile is grim,
For the trampled branches sound to him
Like the cracking of bare-bleached bone.
Ho, holla-ho! the game’s afoot!
He breaks for the open moor!
But hearts grow chill, as the pack cries shrill,
That ne’er felt fear before.
The horses sweat, they plunge and fret,
Tho’ the spur with blood drop fast—
Each man looks on his fellow’s face,
And sees it all aghast—
Aghast and pale, he knows not why—
But the king’s is red with wrath—
“How now, my masters! Shake like babes
To follow the grey wolfs path?{50}”
And none spake word but the eldest lord:
“God shield us from the chase!
For the quarry crossed me as he ran,
And the eyes I saw were the eyes of a man,
Tho’ they looked from a grey wolfs face.”
Loud laughed the king; “A fitting tale
For doting age to tell!
Who lists turn back, but I follow the track
Tho’ it lead to the fires of hell.”
The king doth force his restless horse
Till like the deer he bounds,
Like a flying breath, o’er the windy heath
Behind the calling hounds.
The knightly train spur on amain
As fast as they may flee—
And two are down by the broken bank,
And one by the fallen tree.
Their shadows run in the wan low sun,
Like ghosts they flit beside—
And one is down where the snow lies late,
And two where the marsh is wide.
“Stay, stay, oh king! of all thy train
Alone I am left to follow!”
But the wind beat back the labouring breath
That rattled hoarse and hollow.{51}
In the fearful flight each gallant knight
Lies cold, a broken corse;
By two, by one, the hounds drop dead;
But the king checks not, nor turns his head,
Nor curbs his foaming horse.
Among the lines of the sombre pines
He rides o’er moss and mire;
And lo! their boughs as a brooding smoke,
Their stems as a burning fire!
And had the red sun scorched his sight
Ere he entered the lonely wood?
For he saw in the air but a shifting glare
Like a floating pool of blood.
And was it but the sighing bough
That whispered in his ear
A boding thought, an evil breath?—
Till he could not tell for fear
Whether a fiend spake in his soul,
Or a voice spake in his ear.
In the heart of the wood, a darksome den
Where the lightning-blasted tree
Gleamed in the gloom like whitened bones,
He saw the quarry flee,
With lolling tongue and foaming jaws,
With faint and faltering pace,
And eyes like the eyes of a soul in pain,
Tho’ they looked from a grey wolf’s face.{52}
Lo! with the crash of a falling tree,
The gallant steed drops dead!
But he loosed his foot from the stirrup-iron,
And fast and far he fled.
Thro’ grey twilight, thro’ falling night
Rang the tireless steps and fleet,
And the throb of his heart kept feverish time
To the falling of his feet.
Oh, thick and tall by the lone kirk-wall
Grew thistle and broom and bent;
The holy bell lay where it fell,
And the walls were riven and rent.
Like a fair white shroud on the altar-stone
Lay the late-lingering snow,
And in the window towards the east
The waning moon hung low.
Now, when the beast had reached the kirk,
It moaned like one in pain,
And swerved, but the hunter cried behind,
And drove it on again.
But when it came to the altar-stone,
It started, and leapt, and fell—
And the shout of the king as he gripped its throat
Mixed with its dying yell.{53}
And lo! some evil ban was loosed
By the power of the holy place—
And the glazing eyes with ghastly gleam
Glared from a dead man’s face!
Black as a pall did darkness fall
As the moon hid in a cloud—
And still lay the king by that nameless thing,
Nor knew that he cried aloud,
Till the white face glimmered thro’ the gloom
As the moon stole out again;
When he dashed from his eyes the reeking blood
And stared upon the slain.
And who may tell, save those of hell,
Of the horror cold and grim
That he felt, who saw in that mirk midnight
His own face look at him?
His own dead face, with the haunting eyes
Of the wife his youth had won?
Woe, woe! in the were-wolf’s grisly guise,
Oh king, thou hast slain thy son!
{54} ![[The image of the book's cover is unavailable.]](images/cover.jpg)