morrow mortal eyes and lazy limbs;
Rather on tip-toed hills recumbent yawned,
Aroused an hour too soon; ashamed, disrobed,
Rubbed the stiff sleep from eyes that still would close,
While brayed the hollow horns and bayed lean hounds,
And cheered gallants until the dingles dinned,
Where searched the climbing mists or, compact light,
Fled breathless white, clung scared a moted gray,
Low unsunned cloudlands of the castled hills.
And then near mid-noon from a swarthy brake
The ban-dogs roused a red gigantic stag,
Lashed to whose back with grinding knotted cords,
Borne with whom like a nightmare's incubus,
A man shrieked; burry-bearded and his hair
Kinked with dry, tangled burrs, and he himself
Emaciated and half naked. From
The wear of wildest passage thro' the wild,
Rent red by briars, torn and bruised by rocks.
--For, such the law then, when the peasant chased
Or slew the dun deer of his tyrant lords,
As punishment the torturing withes and spine
Of some big stag, a gift of game and wild
Enough till death--death in the antlered herd
Or crawling famine in bleak, haggard haunts.
Then was the dark Duke glad, and forthwith cried
To all his dewy train a rich reward
For him who slew the stag and saved the man,
But death to him who slew the man and stag,
The careless error of a loose attempt.
So crashed the hunt along wild, glimmering ways
Thro' creepers and vast brush beneath gnarled trees,
Up a scorched torrent's bed. Yet still refused
Each that sure shot; the risk too desperate
The poor life and the golden gift beside.
So this young Kuno with two eyes wherein
Hunt with excitement kindled reckless fire
Clamored, "And are ye cowards?--Good your grace,
You shall not chafe!--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 foot or earn one point beyond.
But, ha! the huge stag staggered from the brake
Heart-hit and perished. That wan wretch unhurt
Soon bondless lay condoled. But the great Duke,
Charmed with the eagle shot, admired the youth,
There to him and his heirs forever gave
The forest keepership.
But envious tongues
Were soon at wag; and whispered went the tale
Of how the shot was free, and that the balls
Used by young Kuno were free bullets, which
Molded were cast in influence of