Are those tones restoring
My wife and bonny sons?
All that I was deploring,
My lost beloved ones?”
Yet soon his sense collected
Brought doubt within his breast;
These hellish arts detected,
A horror him possessed.
And now he sees the raging
Of his young princes dear;
Themselves to Hell engaging,
His voice no more they hear.
And forth, in wild commotion,
They rush, not knowing where;
In tumult like the ocean,
When mad his billows are.
Then, as these things assail’d him,
He wist not what to do;
His knighthood almost fail’d him
Amid that hellish crew.
Then to his soul appeareth
The hour the Duke did die;
His friend’s faint prayer he heareth,
He sees his fading eye.
And so his mind’s in armour,
And hope is conquering fear;
When see, the fiendish Charmer
Himself comes piping near!
His sword to draw he essayeth,
And smite the caitiff dead;
But as the music playeth,
His strength is from him fled.
And from the mountains issue
Crowds of distorted forms,
Of Dwarfs a boundless tissue
Come simmering round in swarms.
The youths, possess’d, are running
As frantic in the crowd:
In vain is force or cunning;
In vain to call aloud.
And hurries on by castle,
By tower and town, the rout;
Like imps in hellish wassail,
With cackling laugh and shout.
He too is in the rabble;
May not resist their force,
Must hear their deafening babble,
Attend their frantic course.
But now the Hill appeareth,
And music comes thereout;
And as the Phantoms hear it,
They halt, and raise a shout.
The Mountain starts asunder,
A motley crowd is seen;
This way and that they wander,
In red unearthly sheen.
Then his broad-sword he drew it,
And says: “Still true, though lost!”
And with mad force he heweth
Through that Infernal host.
His youths he sees (how gladly!)
Escaping through the vale;
The Fiends are fighting madly,
And threatening to prevail.
The Dwarfs, when hurt, fly downward,
And rise up cured again;
And other crowds rush onward,
And fight with might and main.
Then saw he from a distance
The children safe, and cried:
“They need not my assistance,
I care not what betide.”
His good broad-sword doth glitter
And flash i’ th’ noontide ray;
The Dwarfs, with wailing bitter,
And howls, depart away.
Safe at the valley’s ending,
The youths far off he spies;
Then faint and wounded, bending,
The hero falls and dies.
So his last hour o’ertook him,
Fighting like lion brave;
His truth, it ne’er forsook him,
He was faithful to the grave.
Now Eckart having perish’d,
The eldest son bore sway;
His memory still he cherish’d,
With grateful heart would say:
“From foes and wreck to save me,
Like lion grim he fought;
My throne, my life, he gave me,
And with his heart’s blood bought.”
And soon a wondrous rumour
The country round did fill,
That when a desp’rate humour
Doth send one to the Hill,
There straight a Shape will meet him
The Trusty Eckart’s ghost,
And wistfully entreat him
To
