“And ever anon as thou treadest upon The sward of the green charmed ring, Be no word expressed in that space unblessed That ’longeth of holy thing. “For the charmed ground is all unsound, And the lake spreads wide below, And the Water-Fiend there, with the Fiend of Air, Is leagued for mortals’ woe.” ’Mid the sleet and the rain did St. Clair remain Till the evening star did rise; And the rout so gay did dwindle away To the eldritch dwarfy size. When the moonbeams pale fell through the white hail, With a wan and a watery ray, Sad notes of woe seemed round him to grow, The dirge of the elfins grey. And right at the time of the matin chime His mystic pace began, And murmurs deep around him did creep Like the moans of a murdered man. The matin bell was tolling farewell When he reached the central ring, And there he beheld, to ice congealed, That crew, with the Elfin-King. For aye, at the knell of the matin bell, When the black monks wend to pray, The spirits unblessed have a glimpse of rest Before the dawn of day. The sigh of the trees, and the rush of the breeze, Then pause on the lonely hill; And the frost of the dead clings round their head, And they slumber cold and still. The Knight took up the emerald cup, And the ravens hoarse did scream, And the shuddering elfins half rose up, And murmured in their dream: They inwardly mourned, and the thin blood returned To every icy limb; And each frozen eye, so cold and so dry, ’Gan roll with lustre dim. Then brave St. Clair did turn him there To retrace the mystic track, He heard the sigh of his lady fair, Who sobbed behind his back. He started quick and his heart beat thick, And he listened in wild amaze; But the parting bell on his ear it fell, And he did not turn to gaze. With panting breast as he forward pressed, He trod on a mangled head; And the skull did scream, and the voice did seem The voice of his mother dead. He shuddering trode: on the great name of God He thought—but he nought did say; And the greensward did shrink, as about to sink, And loud laughed the Elfins grey. And loud did resound, o’er the unblessed ground, The wings of the blue Elf-King; And the ghostly crew to reach him flew, But he crossed the charméd ring; The morning was grey, and dying away Was the sound of the matin bell; And far to the west the fays that ne’er rest, Fled where the moonbeams fell. And Sir Geoffrey the Bold, on the unhallowed mould, Arose from the green witch-grass; And he felt his limbs, like a dead man’s, cold, And he wist not where he was. And that cup so rare, which the brave St. Clair Did bear from the ghostly crew, Was suddenly changed, from the emerald fair, To the ragged whinstone blue; And instead of the ale that mantled there Was the murky midnight dew.