ous mouth,
And made the eyes unlatticed casements whence
The good man's soul laughed interested out.
Stoups of rare royal Rhenish, such they say
As Necromance hides guarded in vast casks
Of antique make far in the Kyffhaeuser,
The Cellar of the Knights near Sittendorf.
So, mellowed by that wine to friendship frank,
He spake me his intent in coming here;
But not one word of what his parentage;
But this his name was, Rudolf, and his home,
Franconia; but nor why he left nor when:
His mind to live a forester and be
Enfellowed in the Duke of Brunswick's train
Of buff and green; and so to his estate
Even now was bound, a youth of twenty-three.
And when he ceased the fire in his eyes
Worked restless as a troubled animal's,
Which hate-enraged can burn a steady flame,
Brute merciless. And thus I mused with me,
When he had ceased to fulminate at state,
"Another Count von Hackelnburg the fiend
Hath tricked unto the chase!--for hounds from Hell?"
But answered nothing, save light words of cheer
As best become fleet friends warm wine doth make.
Then as it chanced, old Kurt had come that morn
With some six of his jerkined foresters
From the Thuringian forest; damp with dew;
Red-cheeked as morn with early travel; bound
For Brunswick, Dummburg and the Hakel passed.
Chief huntsman he then to the goodly Duke,
And father of the sunniest maiden here
In Ammendorf, the blameless Ilsabe;
Who, motherless, the white-haired father prized
A jewel priceless. As huge barons' ghosts
Guard big, accumulated hoards of wealth,
Fast-sealed in caverned cellars, robber wells,
Beneath the dungeoned Dummburg, so he watched
Her, all his world in her who was his wealth.
A second Lora of Thuringia she.
Faultless for love, instilled all souls with love,
Who, in the favor of her maiden smile,
Felt friendship grow up like a golden thought;
A life of love from words; and light that fell
And wrought calm influence from her pure blue eyes.
Hair sedate and austerely dressed o'er brows
White as a Harz dove's wing; hair with the hue
Of twilight mists the sun hath soaked with gold.
A Tyrolean melody that brought
Dim dreams of Alpine heights, of shepherds brown,
Goat-skinned, with healthy cheeks and wrinkled lips
That fill wild oaten pipes on wand'ring ways,
Embowered deep, with mountain melodies,--
Simple with love and plaintive even to tears,--