Love's is the heart that finds a way To dungeons vast of sin: A thousand deaths may rise to slay, Still will he win. THE FORESTER I met him here at Ammendorf one spring. It was the end of April and the Harz, Treed to their ruin-crested summits, seemed One pulse of tender green and delicate gold, Beneath a heaven that was like the face Of girlhood waking into motherhood. Along the furrowed meadow, freshly ploughed, The patient oxen, loamy to the knees, Plodded or lowed or snuffed the fragrant soil; And in each thorn-tree hedge the wild bird sang A song to spring, full of its own wild self And soul, that heard the blossom-laden May's Heart beating like a star at break of day, As, kissing red the roses, she drew near, Her mouth's ripe rose all dewdrops and perfume. Here at this inn and underneath this tree We took our wine, the morning prismed in its Flame-crystalled gold.--A goodly vintage that! Tang with the ripeness of full twenty years. Rare! I remember! wine that spurred the blood, That brought the heart glad to the songful lip, And made the eyes unlatticed casements whence A man's true soul smiled, breezy as the blue. As royal a Rhenish, I will vouch to say, As that, old legends tell, which Necromance And Magic keep, gnome-guarded, in huge casks Of antique make deep in the Kyffhäuser, Webbed, frosty gray, with salt-petre and mold, The Cellar of the Knights near Sittendorf.-- So solaced by that wine we sat an hour He told me his intent in coming here. His name was Rudolf; and his native place, Franconia; but no word of parentage: Only his mind to don the buff and green And live a forester with us and be Enfellowed in the Duke of Brunswick's train, And for the Duke's estate even now was bound. Tall was he for his age and strong and brown, And lithe of limb; and with a face that seemed Hope's counterpart--but with the eyes of doubt: Deep stealthy disks, instinct with starless night, That seemed to say, "We're sure of Earth--at least For some short while, my friend; but afterward-- Nay! ransack not to-morrow till to-day Lest it engulf thy joy before it is!"-- And when he spoke, the fire in his eyes Worked restless as a hunted animal's; Or like the Count von Hackelnburg's,--the eyes Of the Wild Huntsman,--his that turn and turn Feeling the unseen presence of a fiend.