Some thirty years ago it was;--and I, Commissioner of the Duke--(no sinecure I can assure you)--had scarce reached the age Of thirty,--that we sat here at our wine; And 'twas through me that Rudolf,--whom at first, From some rash words dropped then in argument, The foresterhood was like to be denied,-- Was then enfellowed. "Yes," said I, "he's young. Kurt, he _is_ young: but look you! what a man! What arms! what muscles! what a face--for deeds! An eye--that likes me not; too quick to turn!-- But that may be the restless soul within: A soul perhaps with virtues that have been Severely tried and could not stand the test; These be thy care, Kurt: and if not too deep In vices of the flesh, discover them, As divers bring lost riches up from ooze.-- Thou hast a daughter; let him be thy son." A year thereafter was it that I heard Of Rudolf's passion for Kurt's Ilsabe; Then their betrothal. And it was from this,-- (How her fair memory haunts my old heart still!-- Sweet Ilsabe! whose higher womanhood, True as the touchstone which philosophers feign Transmutes to gold base metals it may touch, Had turned to good all evil in this man,)-- Surmised I of the excellency which Refinement of her purer company, And contact with her innocence, had resolved His fiery nature to, conditioning slave. And so I came from Brunswick--as, you know, Is custom of the Duke or, by his seal Commissioned proxy, his commissioner-- To test the marksmanship of Rudolf, who Succeeded Kurt with marriage of his child, An heir of Kuno.--He?--Great-grandfather To Kurt; and of this forest-keepership The first possessor; thus established here-- Or this the tale they tell on winter nights:-- Kuno, once in the Knight of Wippach's train, Rode on a grand hunt with the Duke, who came,-- Grandfather of the father of our Duke,-- With much magnificence of knights and squires, Great velvet-vestured nobles, cloaked and plumed, To hunt Thuringian deer. Then morn,--so rathe To bid good-morrow to the husbandman Heavy with slumber,--was too slow for these, And on the wind-trod hills recumbent yawned Aroused an hour too soon: ashamed, disrobed, Rubbed the stiff sleep from eyes that still would close; Like some young milkmaid whom the cock hath waked, Who sits within her loft and, half asleep, Stretches and hears the house below her stir, Yet sits and yawns, reluctant still to rise.-- Horns sang and deer-hounds tugged a whimpering leash, Or, loosened, bounded through the baying glens: And ere the mountain mists, compact of white, Broke wild before the azure spears of day, The far-off hunt, that woke the woods to life, Seemed but the heart-beat of the ancient hills.