The Hermit Knight
In a shaggy forest I know a glen
Where the were-wolf made his lair;
'T was haunted of owls, but t' was shunned of men,
For a demon dwelleth there.
When the night was dismal, and wild, and wet,
And yells were on the gale,
I rode a black steed to the glen and met
That demon, grisly pale.
I sprang from charger, where he stood,
And I hailed the spectre dire:
The ground was rank with a smell of blood,
And hot with a smouldering fire:
I called him by his loathly name:
Unmeet for a Christian ear,
And I saw his face by a sudden flame,
Lurid with hate and fear.
I plucked the fiend by his long right hand,
As he sat on a corse, new-slain.
My voice was strong with a firm command:
I have sought thee once again:
“Show me to-night, show me to-night,
What thou may'st not keep from me.”
His coward eye was hellish bright
With a glare not good to see.
My shivering steed, he pawed the moss,
His gasps began to fail:
By a murdered corse and dying horse
I heard that goblin's tale:
But never a spirit that skims the sea,
Nor a phantom of the air,
Must guess what the foul fiend whispered me,
Nor dream what he showed me there.
I had power, I had power in that awesome hour,
And I read his spirit through;
I made him cringe, and I made him cower,
For my heart was brave and true.
I chained him there with a new-forged chain,
By the side of the murdered wight,
And I left him howling a wilder strain
Than the howling of the night.
For ten long years on a mountain bare
I had wept and fasted sore;
I had worn the stones with my knees in prayer,
To conquer a grace the more,
And to weave a spell for a fiendish heart,
A spell for a fiendish will;
To baffle the spite of a demon's art,
I dwelt on the doleful hill.
He may harm, no hapless passer-by;
He may spread nor ban nor bale;
I had strength and wisdom from One on high,
And my courage did not fail.
I won my will, for my soul was pure,
And the secret that I know
Hath given me power great ills to cure
As I journey to and fro.
Go not that way, it is haunted still:
The wolf has left his lair:
The owls have flown to my barren hill,
No living thing is there.
A murdered corse by a blackened stone,
'Neath an oak-tree, gnarled and gray;
And a frenzied demon, alone, alone,
'Till the earth shall pass away.
|