What though the Wild Hunt Like a whirlwind of hell Yestereve ran the forest, With baying and yell:-- In his cups the Red heathen Mocks God to the face; --'In the devil's name, shoot; Tyrrell, ho!--to the chase!' --Now with worms for his courtiers He lies in the narrow Cold couch of the chancel! --But whence was the arrow? The dread vision of Serlo That call'd him to die, The weird sacrilege terror Of sleep, have gone by. The blood of young Richard Cries on him in vain, In the heart of the Lindwood By arbalest slain. And he plunges alone In the Serpent-glade gloom, As one whom the Furies Hound headlong to doom. His sin goes before him, The lust and the pride; And the curses of England Breathe hot at his side. And the desecrate walls Of the Evil-wood shrine Lo, he passes--unheeding Dark vision and sign:-- --Now with worms for his courtiers He lies in the narrow Cold couch of the chancel: --But whence was the arrow? Then a shudder of death Flicker'd fast through the wood:-- And they found the Red King Red-gilt in his blood. What wells up in his throat? Is it cursing, or prayer? Was it Henry, or Tyrrell, Or demon, who there Has dyed the fell tyrant Twice crimson in gore, While the soul disincarnate Hunts on to hell-door? --Ah! friendless in death! Rude forest-hands fling On the charcoaler's wain What but now was the king! And through the long Minster The carcass they bear, And huddle it down Without priest, without prayer:-- Now with worms for his courtiers He lies in the narrow Cold couch of the chancel: --But whence was the arrow? _In his cups_; Rufus, it is said, was 'fey,' as the old phrase has it, on the day of his death. He feasted long and high, and then chose out two cross-bow shafts, presenting them to Tyrrell with the exclamation given above. _Serlo_; He was Abbot of Gloucester, and had sent to Rufus the narrative of an ominous dream, reported in the Monastery. _The true dreams_; On his last night Rufus 'laid himself down to sleep, but not in peace; the attendants were startled by the King's voice--a bitter cry--a cry for help--a cry for deliverance--he had been suddenly awakened by a dreadful dream, as of exquisite anguish befalling him in that ruined church, at the foot of the Malwood rampart.' Palgrave: _Hist. of Normandy and of England_, B. IV: ch. xii. _Young Richard_; Son to Robert Courthose, and hunting, as his uncle's guest, in the New Forest in May 1100, was mysteriously slain by a heavy bolt from a Norman Arbalest. _The Evil-wood walls_; 'Amongst the sixty churches which had been 'ruined,' my Father remarks, in his notice of the New Forest, 'the sanctuary below the mystic Malwood was peculiarly remarkable. . . . You reach the Malwood easily from the Leafy Lodge in the favourite deer-walk, the Lind-hurst, the Dragon's wood.'