Part 4 (1/2)
x.x.xVI.
Then in the night a trumpet; and the dull Close thud of horse and clash of Puritan arms; And glimmering helms swept by me. Sorrowful I stood and waited till upon the storm's Black breast, the Manse, a burning carbuncle, Blazed like a battle-beacon, and alarms Of onslaught clanged around it; then, like one Who bears with him G.o.d's curse, I galloped on.
The Forester
I met him here at Ammendorf one Spring.
It was the end of April and the Harz, Veined to their ruin-crested summits, seemed One pulse of tender green and delicate gold, Beneath a heaven that was like the face Of girlhood waking into motherhood.
Along the furrowed meadow, freshly ploughed, The patient oxen, loamy to the knees, Plodded or lowed or snuffed the fragrant soil; And in each thorntree hedge the wild bird sang A song to Spring, made of its own wild heart And soul, that heard the dairy-maiden May's Heart beating like a star at break of day, As, kissing ripe the blossoms, she drew near, Her mouth's sweet rose all dew-drops and perfume.
Here at this inn and underneath this tree We took our wine, the morning prismed in its Flame-angled gold.--A goodly vintage that!
Tang with the ripeness of full twenty years.
Rare! I remember!--wine that spurred the blood, That brought the heart glad to the limbered lip, And made the eyes unlatticed cas.e.m.e.nts where A man's true soul you could not help but see.
As royal a Rhenish, I will vouch to say, As that, old legends tell, which Necromance And Magic keep, gnome-guarded, in huge casks Of antique make deep in the Kyffhauser, The Cellar of the Knights near Sittendorf.-- So solaced of that wine we sat an hour.
He told me his intent in coming here.
His name was Rudolf; and his native home, Franconia; but no word of parentage: Only his mind to don the buff and green And live a forester with us and be Enfellowed in the Duke of Brunswick's train, And for the Duke's estate even now was bound.
Tall was he for his age and strong and brown, And lithe of limb; and with a face that seemed Hope's counterpart--but with the eyes of doubt; Deep restless disks, instinct with gleaming night, That seemed to say, ”We're sure of earth, at least For some short s.p.a.ce, my friend; but afterward-- Nay! ransack not to-morrow till to-day, Lest it engulf thy joy before it is!”-- And when he spoke, the fire in his eyes Worked stealthy as a hunted animal's; Or like the Count von Hackelnburg's that turn, Feeling the unseen presence of a fiend.
Then, as it chanced, old Kurt had come that morn With some six of his jerkined foresters From the Thuringian forest; wet with dew, And fresh as morn with early travel; bound For Brunswick, Dummburg and the Hakel pa.s.sed.
Chief huntsman he then to our lord the Duke, And father of the loveliest maiden here In Ammendorf, the sunny Ilsabe: Her mother dead, the gray-haired father prized His daughter more than all that men hold dear; His only happiness, who was beloved Of all as Lora of Thuringia was, For gentle ways that spoke a n.o.ble soul, Winning all hearts to love her and to praise, As might a great and beautiful thought that holds Us by the simplest words.--Her eyes were blue As the high influence of a summer day.
Her hair,--serene and braided over brows White as a Harz dove's wing,--was auburn brown, And deep as mists the sun has drenched with gold.
And her young presence--well, 't was like a song, A far Tyrolean melody of love, Heard on an Alpine path at close of day When shepherds homeward lead their tinkling flocks.
And when she left, being with you awhile,-- How shall I say it?--'t was as when one hath Beheld an Undine by the moonlit Rhine, Who, ere the mind adjusts a thought, is gone, And in your soul you wonder if a dream.
Some thirty years ago it was;--and I, Commissioner of the Duke--(no sinecure I can a.s.sure you)--had scarce reached the age Of thirty,--that we sat here at our wine; And 't was through me that Rudolf,--whom at first, From some rash words dropped then in argument, The foresterhood was like to be denied,-- Was then enfellowed. ”Yes,” said I, ”he's young.
Kurt, he is young; but see, a wiry frame; A chamois footing and a face for deeds; An eye that likes me not; too quick to turn; But that may be the restless soul within; A soul perhaps with virtues that have been Severely tried and could not stand the test; These be thy care, Kurt; and if not too deep In vices of the flesh, discover them, As divers bring lost riches up from ooze.
Thou hast a daughter; let him be thy son.”
A year thereafter was it that I heard Of Rudolf's pa.s.sion for Kurt's Ilsabe; Then their betrothal. And it was from this,-- Good Mother Mary! how she haunts me still!
Sweet Ilsabe! whose higher womanhood, True as the touchstone which philosophers feign Trans.m.u.tes to gold base metals it may touch, Had turned to good all evil in this man,-- Surmised I of the excellency which Refinement of her purer company, And contact with her innocence, had resolved His fiery nature to, conditioning slave.
And so I came from Brunswick--as, you know, Is custom of the Duke or, by his seal Commissioned proxy, his commissioner-- To test the marksmans.h.i.+p of Rudolf, who Succeeded Kurt with marriage of his child, An heir of Kuno.--He?--Greatgrandfather Of Kurt; and of this forestkeepers.h.i.+p The first possessor; thus established here-- Or this the tale they tell on winter nights: Kuno, once in the Knight of Wippach's train, Rode on a grand hunt with the Duke, who came,-- Grandfather of the father of our Duke,-- With much magnificence of knights and squires, Great velvet-vestured n.o.bles, cloaked and plumed, To hunt Thuringian deer. Then morn,--too quick To bid good-morrow,--was too slow for these, And on the wind-trod hills rec.u.mbent yawned Disturbed an hour too soon; all sleepy-eyed, Like some young milkmaid whom the c.o.c.k hath roused, Who sits and rubs stiff eyes that still will close.
Horns sang and deer-hounds tugged a whimpering leash, Or, loosened, bounded through the baying glens: And ere the mountain mists, compact of white, Broke wild before the azure spears of day, The far-off hunt, that woke the woods to life, Seemed but the heart-beat of the ancient hills.
And then, near noon, within a forest brake, The ban-dogs roused a red gigantic stag, Lashed to whose back with gnarly-knotted cords, And borne along like some pale parasite, A man shrieked: tangle-bearded, and wild hair A mane of forest-burs. The man himself, Emaciated and half-naked from The stag's mad flight through headlong rocks and trees, One bleeding bruise, with eyes like holes of fire.
For such the law then: when the peasant chased Or slew the dun deer of his tyrant lords, If seized, as punishment the withes and spine Of some strong stag, a gift to him of game, Enough till death--death in the antlered herd, Or slow starvation in the haggard hills.
Then was the great Duke glad, and forthwith cried To all his hunting train a rich reward For him who slew the stag and saved the man, But death for him who slew both man and stag.
So plunged the hunt after the hurrying slot, A shout and glimmer through the sounding woods,-- Like some mad torrent that the hills have loosed With death for goal.--'T was late; and none had risked That shot as yet,--too desperate the risk Beside the poor life and a little gold,-- When this young Kuno, with fierce eyes, wherein Hunt and impatience kindled reckless flame, Cried, ”Has the dew then made our powder wet?
Or have we left our marksmans.h.i.+p at home?
Here's for its heart! the Fiend direct my ball!”-- And fired into a covert deeply packed, An intertangled wall of matted night, Wherein the eye might vainly strive and strive To pierce one fathom, earn one foot beyond.
But, ha! the huge stag staggered from the brake Hit full i' the heart. And that wan wretch, unbound, Was ta'en and cared for. Then his grace, the Duke, Charmed with the eagle aim, called Kuno up, And there to him and his forever gave The forestkeepers.h.i.+p.
But envious tongues Were soon at wag; and whispered went the tale Of how the shot was free, and how the b.a.l.l.s Used by young Kuno were free bullets--which To say is: Lead by magic moulded, in The influence and directed, of the Fiend.
Of some effect these tales, and had some force Even with the Duke, who lent an ear so far As to ordain Kuno's descendants all To proof of skill ere their succession to The father's office. Kurt himself hath shot The silver ring out o' the popinjay's beak-- A good shot he, you see, who would succeed.
Of these enchanted bullets let me speak: There may be such; our Earth has things as strange, Perhaps, and stranger, that we doubt not of, While we behold, not only 'neath the thatch Of Ignorance's hovel, but within The pictured halls of Wisdom's palaces, How Superst.i.tion sits an honored guest.
A cross-way let it be among the hills; A cross-way in a solitude of pines; And on the lonely cross-way you must draw A blood-red circle with a b.l.o.o.d.y sword; And round the circle, runic characters, Gaunt and satanic; here a skull, and there A scythe and cross-bones, and an hour-gla.s.s here; And in the centre, fed with coffin-wood, Stol'n from the grave of one, a murderer, A smouldering fire. Eleven of the clock The first ball leaves the mold--the sullen lead Mixed with three bullets that have hit their mark, And blood, the wounded Sacramental Host Stolen, and hence unhallowed, oozed, when shot Fixed to a riven pine. Ere twelve o'clock With never a word until that hour sound, Must all the b.a.l.l.s be cast; and these must be In number three and sixty; three of which The Fiend's dark agent, demon Sammael, Claims for his master and stamps for his own To hit aside their mark, askew for harm.
The other sixty shall not miss their mark.
No cry, no word, no whisper, even though Vague, gesturing shapes, that loom like moonlit mists, Their faces human but with animal forms, Rise thick around and threaten to destroy.
No cry, no word, no whisper should there come, Weeping, a wandering shadow like the girl You love, or loved, now lost to you, her eyes Hollow with tears; all palely beckoning With beautiful arms, or censuring; her face Sad with a desolate love; who, if you speak Or waver from that circle--hideous change!-- Shrinks to a wrinkled hag, whose harpy hands Shall tear you limb from limb with horrible mirth.