THE WILD HUNTSMAN.

THE huntsman and his bloodhounds

Are coursing overhead,

And from each saddened threshold

They summon forth the dead.

Hush! they have stopped a moment;

Dost hear their calling low,

That through the open window

The soul may with them go?

O'er valley and o'er hillside,

O'er lowly cot and court,

Onward the phantom huntsman

Pursues his ghastly sport.

The rain beats down in torrents,

The pine-trees moan and sigh,

The traveller is belated,

With midnight drawing nigh.

But Odin and his bloodhounds

O'ertake him on his way;

He sees their shadowy figures,

He hears their hellish bay.

His brow grows cold and pallid,

His limbs are chilled and dead;

And in the lightning flashes

They rage above his head.

And with a fiendish struggle,

And with a fiendish cry,

He breaks his earthy shackles,

And joins them as they fly.

Z.