m bemoaning beggars bowed with woe.
Blow, wood-wind, blow! now that all's fresh and fine
As earth and wood can make it; fresh as brine
And rare with sodden scents of underbrush.
Ring, and one hears a cavalcade a-rush;
Bold blare of horns; shrill music of steel bows;--
A horn! a horn! the hunt is up and goes
Beneath the acorn-dropping oaks in green,--
Dark woodland green, a boar-spear held between
His selle and hunter's head, and at his thigh
A good, broad hanger, and one fist on high
To wind the rapid echoes from his horn,
That start the field birds from the sheaved corn,
Uphurled in vollies of audacious wings,
That cease again when it no longer sings.
Away, away, they flash a belted band
From Camelot thro' that haze-ghostly land;
Hounds leashed and leamers and a flash of steel,
A tramp of horse and the long-baying peal
Of stag hounds whimp'ring and--behold! the hart,
A lordly height, doth from the covert dart;
And the big blood-hounds strain unto the chase.
A-hunt! a-hunt! the _pryce_ seems but a pace
On ere 'tis wound; but now, where interlace
The dense-briered underwoods, the hounds have lost
The slot, there where a forest brook hath crossed
With intercepting waters full of leaves.
Beyond, the hart a tangled labyrinth weaves
Thro' dimmer boscage, and the wizard sun
Shapes many shadowy stags that seem to run
Wild herds before the baffled foresters.
And treed aloft a reckless laugh one hears,
As if some helping goblin from the trees
Mocked them the unbayed hart and made a breeze
His pursuivant of mocking. Hastening thence
Pursued King Arthur and King Urience
With one small brachet, till scarce hear could they
Their fellowship far-furthered course away
On fresher trace of hind or rugged boar
With haggard, hairy flanks, curled tusks and hoar
With fierce foam-fury; and of these bereft
The kings continued in the slot they'd left.
And there the hart plunged gallant thro' the brake
Leaving a torn path shaking in his wake,
Down which they followed on thro' many a copse
Above whose brush, close on before, the tops
Of the large antlers swelled anon, and so
Were gone where beat the brambles to and fro.
And still they drave him hard; and ever near
Seemed that great hart unwearied; and such cheer
Still stung them to the chase. When Arthur's horse
Gasped mightily and lunging in his course
Lay dead, a lordly bay; an