For when the first he had undone, It closed as he the next begun. Those iron clasps, that iron band, Would not yield to unchristened hand, With the Borderer's curdled gore: Seem tapestry in lordly hall; A nut-shell seem a gilded barge, A sheeling seem a palace large, And youth seem age, and age seem youth All was delusion, nought was truth. X. He had not read another spell, When on his cheek a buffet fell, * Magical delusion. + A shepherd's hut. So fierce, it stretched him on the plain, Beside the wounded Deloraine. From the ground he rose dismayed, No more the Elfin Page durst try Into the wonderous Book to pry; The clasps, though smeared with Christian gore, Shut faster than they were before. He hid it underneath his cloak. Now, if you ask who gave the stroke, I cannot tell, so mot I thrive; It was not given by man alive. XI. Unwillingly himself he addressed, He lifted up the living corse, And laid it on the weary horse; He led him into Branksome hall, Before the beards of the warders all; And each did after swear and say, There only passed a wain of hay. He took him to Lord David's tower, And the door might not be opened, He had laid him on her very bed. Was always done maliciously; He flung the warrior on the ground, And the blood welled freshly from the wound. XII. As he repassed the outer court, He spied the fair young child at sport: For, at a word, be it understood, He was always for ill, and never for good. Seemed to the boy, some comrade gay Saw a terrier and lurcher passing out. XIII. He led the boy o'er bank and fell, He had crippled the joints of the noble child; Had strangled him in fiendish spleen : But his awful mother he had in dread, And also his power was limited; So he but scowled on the startled child, And darted through the forest wild; The woodland brook he bounding crossed, And laughed, and shouted, "Lost! lost! lost!" XIV. Full sore amazed at the wonderous change, And frightened, as a child might be, At the wild yell and visage strange, The child, amidst the forest bower, And when at length, with trembling pace, He sought to find where Branksome lay, He feared to see that grisly face Glare from some thicket on his way. Thus, starting oft, he journeyed on, And deeper in the wood is gone,— Ring to the baying of a hound. |