Where the greenwood is greenest
At gloaming of day,
Where the twelve-antler'd stag
Faces boldest at bay;
Where the solitude deepens,
Till almost you hear
The blood-beat of the heart
As the quarry slips near;
His comrades outridden
With scorn in the race,
The Red King is hallooing
His bounds to the chase.
What though the Wild Hunt
Like a whirlwind of hell
Yestereve ran the forest,
With baying and yell:--
In his cups the Red heathen
Mocks God to the face;
--'In the devil's name, shoot;
Tyrrell, ho!--to the chase!'
--Now with worms for his courtiers
He lies in the narrow
Cold couch of the chancel!
--But whence was the arrow?
The dread vision of Serlo
That call'd him to die,
The weird sacrilege terror
Of sleep, have gone by.
The blood of young Richard
Cries on him in vain,
In the heart of the Lindwood
By arbalest slain.
And he plunges alone
In the Serpent-glade gloom,
As one whom the Furies
Hound headlong to doom.
His sin goes before him,
The lust and the pride;
And the curses of England
Breathe hot at his side.
And the desecrate walls
Of the Evil-wood shrine
Lo, he passes--unheeding
Dark vision and sign:--
--Now with worms for his courtiers
He lies in the narrow
Cold couch of the chancel:
--But whence was the arrow?
Then a shudder of death
Flicker'd fast through the wood:--
And they found the Red King
Red-gilt in his blood.
What wells up in his throat?
Is it cursing, or prayer?
Was it Henry, or Tyrrell,
Or demon, who there
Has dyed the fell tyrant
Twice crimson in gore,
While the soul disincarnate
Hunts on to hell-door?
--Ah! friendless in death!
Rude forest-hands fling
On the charcoaler's wain
What but now was the king!
And through the long Minster
The carcass they bear,
And huddle it down
Without priest, without prayer:--
Now with worms for his courtiers
He lies in the narrow
Cold couch of the chancel:
--But whence was the arrow?
_In his cups_; Rufus, it is said, was 'fey,' as the old phrase has it, on
the day of his death. He feasted long and high, and then chose out two
cross-bow shafts, presenting them to Tyrrell with the exclamation given
above.
_Serlo_; He was Abbot of Gloucester, and had sent to Rufus the narrative
of an ominous dream, reported in the Monastery.
_The true dreams_; On his last night Rufus 'laid himself down to sleep,
but not in peace; the attendants were startled by the King's voice--a
bitter cry--a cry for help--a cry for deliverance--he had been suddenly
awakened by a dreadful dream, as of exquisite anguish befalling him in
that ruined church, at the foot of the Malwood rampart.' Palgrave:
_Hist. of Normandy and of England_, B. IV: ch. xii.
_Young Richard_; Son to Robert Courthose, and hunting, as his uncle's
guest, in the New Forest in May 1100, was mysteriously slain by a heavy
bolt from a Norman Arbalest.
_The Evil-wood walls_; 'Amongst the sixty churches which had been
'ruined,' my Father remarks, in his notice of the New Forest, 'the
sanctuary below the mystic Malwood was peculiarly remarkable. . . . You
reach the Malwood easily from the Leafy Lodge in the favourite deer-walk,
the Lind-hurst, the Dragon's wood.'
_Through the long Minster_; Winchester. Rufus, with much hesitation, was
buried in the chancel as a king; but no religious service or ceremonial
was celebrated:--'All men thought that prayers were hopeless.'