Casting that same fateful ball Whereby Atta Troll was slain. How the lurching firelight flares O'er the witch's features gaunt! Ceaselessly, yet silently Move her thin and quivering lips. Are those magic spells she murmurs That the balls may travel true? Now and then she nods and titters To her son. But he is deep In the business of the casts And sits silently as Death. Overcome by fevered fears, Yearning for the cooler air, To the window then I strode And looked down the gulches dim. All that in that midnight hour I beheld, all that will I Faithfully and featly tell In the canto that shall follow. [Illustration] [Illustration] CANTO XVIII 'Twas the night before Saint John's, In the fullness of the moon, When that wild and spectral hunt Fills the Hollow Way of Ghosts. From the window of Uraka's Little cabin I could see All that mighty host of wraiths As it drifted through the gorge. Yea, a goodly place was mine Wherefrom I might well behold The tremendous spectacle Of the raised, carousing dead. Cracking whips, hallo! hurrah! Neigh of horses, bark of dogs, Laughter, blare of huntsmen's horns-- How the tumult echoed there! Dashing in advance there came Stags and boars adventurous In a solid pack; behind Charged a wild and merry rout. Huntsmen come from many zones And from many ages too. Charles the Tenth rode close beside Nimrod the Assyrian. High upon their snowy steeds They charged onward. Then on foot Came the whips with hounds in leash And the pages with the links. Many in that maddened horde Seemed familiar--yon knight Gleaming all in golden mail,-- Surely was King Arthur's self! And Lord Ogier the Dane In chain-armour shining green, Truly close resemblance bore To some mighty frog forsooth! Many a hero I beheld Of the gleaming world of thought; Wolfgang Goethe straight I knew By the sparkling of his eyes. Being damned by Hengstenberg, In his grave no peace he finds, So with pagan blazonry Gallops down the chase of Life. By the glamour of his smile Did I know the mighty Will Whom the Puritans once cursed Like our Goethe,--yet must he, Luckless sinner, in this host Ride a charger black as coal. Close beside him on an ass Rode a mortal and--great heavens! By the weary mien of prayer And the snowy night-cap too, And the terror of his soul, Francis Horn I recognized. Commentaries he composed On that great and cosmic child, Shakespeare--therefore at his side He must ride through thick and thin.