All mild, amid the route profane,
The holy hermit pour'd his prayer:
Forbear with blood God's house to stain;
Revere his altar, and forbear!

The meanest brute has rights to plead,
Which, wrong'd by cruelty or pride,
Draw vengeance on the ruthless head:
Be warn'd at length, and turn aside.'

Still the fair horseman anxious pleads,
The black, wild whooping, points the prey
Alas! the Earl no warning heeds,

But frantic keeps the forward way.

'Holy or not, or right or wrong, Thy altar and its rights I spurn; Not sainted martyrs' sacred song,

Not God himself, shall make me turn.'

He spurs his horse, he winds his horn,
Hark forward, forward, holla, ho!'
But off, on whirlwind's pinions borne,
The stag, the hut, the hermit, go.

And horse and man, and horn and hound,
And clamour of the chase was gone:
For hoofs and howls, and bugle sound,
A deadly silence reign'd alone.

Wild gazed the affrighted Earl around;
He strove in vain to wake his horn,
In vain to call; for not a sound
Could from his anxious lips be borne.

He listens for his trusty hounds;
No distant baying reach'd his ears;
His courser, rooted to the ground,

The quickening spur unmindful bears.

Still dark and darker frown the shades,
Dark as the darkness of the grave;

And not a sound the still invades,
Save what a distant torrent gave.

High o'er the sinner's humbled head
At length the solemn silence broke
And, from a cloud of swarthy red,

'Oppressor of creation fair!
Apostate spirit's harden'd tool!
Scorner of God! scourge of the poor!
The measure of thy cup is full.

Be chased for ever through the wood,
For ever roam the affrighted wild;
And let thy fate instruct the proud,
God's meanest creature is his child.'

'Twas hush'd: one flash of sombre glare
With yellow tinged the forests brown;
Up rose the Wildgrave's bristling hair,

And horror chill'd each nerve and bone.

Cold pour'd the sweat in freezing rill;
A rising wind began to sing;
And louder, louder, louder still,

Brought storm and tempest on its wing.

Earth heard the call-her entrails rend
From yawning rifts, with many a yell,
Mix'd with sulphureous flames, ascend
The misbegotten dogs of hell.

What ghastly huntsman next arose,
Well may I guess, but dare not tell :
His eye like midnight lightning glows,
His steed the swarthy hue of hell.

The Wildgrave flies o'er bush and thorn,
With many a shriek of helpless woe;
Behind him hound, and horse, and horn,
And hark away, and holla, ho!

With wild despair's reverted eye,

Close, close behind, he marks the throng; With bloody fangs, and eager cry, In frantic fear he scours along.

Still, still shall last the dreadful chase,
Till time itself shall have an end;
By day, they scour earth's cavern'd space,
At midnight's witching hour, ascend.

This is the horn, and hound, and horse,
That oft the lated peasant hears :
Appall'd, he signs the frequent cross,

The wakeful priest oft drops a tear,
For human pride, for human woe,
When, at his midnight mass, he hears
The infernal cry of holla, ho!

['The French had a similar tradition' to that on which the above ballad is founded, 'concerning an aerial hunter, who infests the Forest of Fontainbleau. He was sometimes visible, when he appeared as a huntsman, surrounded with dogs, a tall grisly figure. Some account of him may be found in Sully's Memoirs,' who says he was called Le Grand Veneur. · At one time he chose

to hunt so near the palace, that the attendants, and, if I mistake not, Sully himself, came out into the court, supposing it was the sound of the king returning from the chase. This phantom is elsewhere called Saint Hubert. The superstition seems to have been general, as appears from a fine poetical description of this phantom chase, as it was heard in the wilds of Ross-shire, in a poem entitled Albania,' reprinted in 'Scottish Descriptive Poems,' pp. 167, 168. A posthumous miracle of Father Lesley, a Scottish capuchin, related to his being buried on a hill haunted by these unearthly ories of hounds and huntsmen. After his sainted relics had been deposited there, the noise was never heard more. The reader will find this, and other miracles, recorded in the life of Father Bonaventura, which is written in the choicest Italian.-Scott.

In this our England' the superstition is not unknown.'

There is an old tale goes, that Herne the hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest,
Doth all the winter time, at still midnight,

Walk round about an oak, with great ragd horns;
And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle;

And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain,
In a most hideous and dreadful manner.'

SHAKESPEARE, Merry Wives of Windsor Ac r. Sc 4.]