Joyful and merry amid the height The huntsman goes to the chase; His booty must appear in sight In the bright green thickets, though till night Its path he vainly trace. And there his faithful dogs are yelling Through the solitude sublime; Through the wood the horns are telling, And all hearts with courage swelling, O thou happy hunting-time! His home is clefts and caves among, The trees all greet him well: Autumnal airs breathe round him strong; And when he finds his prey, his song Resounds from every dell. Leave the landsman to his labour, And the sailor to the sea; None so views Aurora's favour, None so tastes the morning's savour, When the dew lies heavily, As who follows wood and game, While Diana's smile doth shew, Till some beauteous form inflame His heart, that he most loved can name, Happy hunting man art thou! Whilst he thus sang, the sun had sunk deeper, and broad shadows fell across the narrow valley. A cooling twilight stole over the earth; while only the tops of the trees and the round summits of the mountains were gilded by the evening glow. Christian's heart grew still sadder: he liked not to return to his fowling-floor, and yet he might not stay; he seemed to himself so lonely, and he longed for society. Now he wished for those old books which once he had seen at his father's house, and which he never would read, though his father had often urged him thereto; the scenes of his childhood came before him, his sports with the youth of the village, his acquaintances among the children, the school that had so often distressed him; he wished himself back again amid those scenes, which he had wilfully forsaken to seek his fortune in unknown regions, on mountains, among strange men, in a new occupation. As it grew darker, and the brook rushed louder, and the birds of night with fitful wing began their devious wanderings, he still sat dejected and disconsolate, and quite unresolved what to do or purpose. Thoughtlessly he pulled out a straggling root from the earth; when suddenly he heard a hollow moaning under ground, which wound itself onward underneath, and only died away plaintively in the distance. The sound penetrated his inmost heart; it seized him as if he had unconsciously stirred the wound of which the dying frame of nature was expiring in agony. He started up, and would have fled away; for he had heard aforetime of the wondrous mandrake-root, which, on being torn, sends forth such heart-rending moans, that the person who has done it is fain to run away maddened by its wailings. As he was about to depart, a stranger stood behind him, and asked him, with a friendly air, whither he was going. Christian had wished for society, and yet he was terrified anew at this friendly presence. "Whither so hastily?" asked the stranger again.