To hear the rattle of the sheaves,
And coursers rustling in the leaves,
With merry blasts between.
Foremost, amid his knights of pride,
The Red King paced, and at his side
Sir Walter Tyrrell free;
For England's love he left his home
And sailed across the salt sea-foam
From woods of Normandy.
He bare his bow before the king,
And led two greyhounds in a string,
With skins of snowy hue;
He was a ready man on horse,
Was better none to hunt of force,
Or brace the sounding yew.
Now fast beside the pathway stood
A ruined village, shagged with wood,
A melancholy place;
The ruthless conqueror cast down
(Woe worth the deed!) that little town
To lengthen out his chase.
Among the fragments of the church
A raven there had found a perch—-
She flickered with her wing;
She stirred not, she, for voice or shout,
She moved not for that revel rout,
But croaked upon the king.
Here first the merry huntsmen loose
Lym-dog1 and greyhound from the noose,
Crack sapling, gorse, and thorn;
Then each man's hand was to his quiver,
Then rang the woods as they would shiver
With hound and bugle horn.
Loud wax'd the merry cry "Avaunt!"
While, shrouded close in woody haunt
The gallants take their stand,
When, lo! a hart came bounding by,
The king a grey-goose shaft let fly,
Then raised his bridle hand.
So looking underneath the sun
He saw the branching quarry run,
Unscath'd o'er bent and low.2
And "Ho!" he cried, "the game's afoot,
Ho! in the fiend's name, Tyrrell, shoot."
Sir Walter drew his bow.
He draws his bow with right good will;
The shaft, if it go true, must kill;
Back leaps the sounding string.
Missed of the deer, the whistling reed
A nobler prey was doomed to bleed-
No less than England's king!
The random dart an oak-tree grazed,
(I said the king's left arm was raised,)
It smote him in that side;
1 A limer, or slow hound.
Deep in the flesh the fork-head stood,
And, quivering, drank his heart's best blood,
Which welled a crimson tide.
East, west, and north his many fled--
The sad Sir Walter first, for dread:
So, without prayer or Host,1
Without a priest his soul to speed,
Or friend to help him in his need,
He yielded up the ghost.
A Minstead churl, whose wonted trade
Was burning charcoal in the glade,
Outstretched amid the gorse
The monarch found, and in his wain
He raised, and to St. Swithin's fane
Conveyed the bleeding corse.
And still-so runs our forest creed-
Flourish the pious woodman's seed,
Even in the self-same spot:
One horse and cart their little store,
Like their forefathers, neither more
Nor less the children's lot.
And still in merry Lyndhurst-hall
Red William's stirrup decks the wall,
Who lists the sight may see:
And a fair stone in green Malwood
Informs the traveller where stood
The memorable tree.
* Minestead, a village in the New Forest.
Thus in those fields the Red King died;
His father wasted in his pride:
For it is God's command,
Who doth another's birthright reave
The curse unto his blood shall cleave,
And God's own word shall stand.
Isabel, the bride of John, brother to Richard I, has just been brought to Chaluz, where Richard is dying.
Stood Isabel, and saw the dying king.
He, on his couch, an arrow in his breast,
Kept down his pain as though it were his foe,
And gazed, unshaken, in the eyes of Death.
She heard him speak. There stood an archer bound
At his bed-foot, defiant, in the gripe
Of men whose faces thirsted for his blood,
Scarce able to restrain themselves, and wait
His sentence; this was he who slew the king;
And the king spoke his doom. "Take him away,
And set him free: I freely pardon him."
They dragg'd him forth. Then was the place made calm
Except for grief; and the king smiled, and waved
His strong hand feebly, and with steady voice,
Slow dying into silence like a horn,
Said: "Farewell, England! farewell, all my knights!
Remember me in battle, as a man
Who never turn'd his back, nor broke his faith,
Nor fail'd to spare the weak. I have not shaped
A law to keep my name for after-times,
As on a throne, above the minds of men ;
But Man is more than Law, and I may leave
Some impress of myself upon the world,
One poor brief life, helping to feed the flame
Of chivalry, and keep alive the truth
That courage, honour, mercy, make a knight."
Here paused the stately sound, and then resumed
More softly: "Do not weep. Oh, die with me,
But do not hold me back! I cannot die
With all this weight of tears about my heart.”
And low sobs answer'd through the stillness, yet
You could not see who wept. Then stretch'd the king
His arms, and cried: "I see, I see a Cross
Beneath the palms! O weary waste of sand!
O Cross, my home! let me lie down and sleep
At thy dear foot, and dream of deeds to come,
Forgetting all the feeble, sinful past!
Father, forgive me! Is my brother there?
Let some one tell him to be true to England,
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