'Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done, While our slumbrous spells assail ye, Dream not, with the rising sun, Bugles here shall sound reveille.Sleep! the deer is in his den; Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying; Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen, How thy gallant steed lay dying. Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done, Think not of the rising sun, For at dawning to assail ye, Here no bugles sound reveille.'
XXXIII
The hall was cleared—the stranger's bed Was there of mountain heather spread, Where oft a hundred guests had lain, And dreamed their forest sports again. But vainly did the heath-flower shed Its moorland fragrance round his head; Not Ellen's spell had lulled to rest The fever of his troubled breast. In broken dreams the image rose Of varied perils, pains, and woes: His steed now flounders in the brake, Now sinks his barge upon the lake; Now leader of a broken host, His standard falls, his honor's lost. Then—from my couch may heavenly might Chase that worst phantom of the night! Again returned the scenes of youth, Of confident undoubting truth; Again his soul he interchanged With friends whose hearts were long estranged. They come, in dim procession led, The cold, the faithless, and the dead; As warm each hand, each brow as gay, As if they parted yesterday. And doubt distracts him at the view— O were his senses false or true? Dreamed he of death, or broken vow, Or is it all a vision now?
XXXIV
At length, with Ellen in a grove He seemed to walk, and speak of love; She listened with a blush and sigh, His suit was warm, his hopes were high. He sought her yielded hand to clasp, And a cold gauntlet met his grasp; The phantom's sex was changed and gone, Upon its head a helmet shone; Slowly enlarged to giant size, With darkened cheek and threatening eyes, The grisly visage, stern and hoar, To Ellen still a likeness bore. He woke, and, panting with affright, Recalled the vision of the night. The hearth's decaying brands were red. And deep and dusky luster shed, Half showing, half concealing, all
