The Elfin King
“O swift and swifter far he speeds
Than earthly steed can run;
But I hear not the feet of his courser fleet,
As he glides o’er the moorland dun.”
Lone was the strath where he crossed their path,
And wide did the heath extend,
The Knight in Green on that moor is seen
At every seven years’ end.
And swift is the speed of his coal-black steed,
As the leaf before the gale,
But never yet have that courser’s feet
Been heard on hill or dale.
But woe to the wight who meets the Green Knight,
Except on his faulchion arm
Spell-proof he bear, like the brave St. Clair,
The holy Trefoil’s charm;
For then shall fly his gifted eye,
Delusions false and dim;
And each unblessed shade shall stand portrayed
In ghostly form and limb.
O swifter, and swifter far he speeds
Than earthly steed can run;
“He skims the blue air,” said the brave St. Clair,
“Instead of the heath so dun.
“His locks are as bright as the streamer’s light,
His cheeks like the rose’s hue;
The Elfin-King, like the merlin’s wing
Are his pinions of glossy blue.”
“No Elfin-King, with azure wing,
On the dark brown moor I see;
But a courser keen, and a Knight in Green,
And full fair I ween is he.
“Nor Elfin-King, nor azure wing,
Nor ringlets sparkling bright;”
Sir Geoffrey cried, and forward hied
To join the stranger Knight.
He knew not the path of the lonely strath,
Where the Elfin-King went his round;
Or he never had gone with the Green Knight on,
Nor trod the charmèd ground.
How swift they flew! no eye could view
Their track on heath or hill;
Yet swift across both moor and moss
St. Clair did follow still.
And soon was seen a circle green,
Where a shadowy wassel crew
Amid the ring did dance and sing,
In weeds of watchet blue.
And the windlestrae,2 so limber and grey,
Did shiver beneath the tread
Of the coursers’ feet, as they rushed to meet
The morrice of the dead.
“Come here, come here, with thy green fere,
Before the bread be stale;
To roundel dance with speed advance,
And taste our wassel ale.”
Then up to the Knight came a grizly wight,
And sounded in his ear,
“Sir Knight, eschew this goblin crew,
Nor taste their ghostly cheer.”
The tabors rung, the lilts were sung,
And the Knight the dance did lead;
But the maidens fair seemed round him to stare,
With eyes like the glassy bead.
The glance of their eye, so cold and so dry,
Did almost his heart appal;
Their motion is swift, but their limbs they lift
Like stony statues all.
Again to the Knight came the grizly wight,
When the rounded dance was o’er;
“Sir Knight, eschew this goblin crew,
Or rue for evermore.”
But forward pressed the dauntless guest
To the tables of ezlar red,
And there was seen the Knight in Green,
To grace the fair board head.
And before that Knight was a goblet bright
Of emerald smooth and green,
The fretted brim was studded full trim
With mountain rubies’ sheen.
Sir Geoffrey the Bold of the cup laid hold
With health-ale mantling o’er;
And he saw as he drank that the ale never shrank
But mantled as before.
Then Sir Geoffrey grew pale as he quaffed the ale,
And cold as the corpse of clay;
And with horny beak the ravens did shriek,
And fluttered o’er their prey.
But soon throughout the revel rout
A strange commotion ran,
For beyond the round they heard the sound
Of the steps of an uncharmed man.
And soon to St. Clair the grim wight did repair,
From the midst of the wassel crew;
“Sir Knight, beware of the revellers there,
Nor do as they bid thee do.”
“What woeful wight art thou?” said the Knight,
“To haunt this wassel fray?”
“I was once,” quoth he, “a mortal, like thee,
Though now I’m an elfin grey.
“And the Knight so bold as the corpse lies cold,
Who trode the greensward ring;
He must wander along with that restless throng,
For aye, with the Elfin-King.
“With the restless crew, in weeds so blue,
The hapless Knight must wend;
Nor ever be seen on haunted green
Till the weary seven years’ end.
“Fair is the mien of the Knight in Green,
And bright his sparkling hair;
’Tis hard to believe how malice can live
In the breast of aught so fair.
“And light and fair are the fields of air,
Where he wanders to and fro;
Still doomed to fleet from the regions of heat
To the realms of endless snow.
“When high overhead fall the streamers3 red,
He views the blessed afar;
And in stern despair darts through the air
To earth, like a falling star.
“With his shadowy crew, in weeds so blue,
That Knight for aye must run;
Except thou succeed in a perilous deed,
Unseen by the holy sun.
“Who ventures the deed, and fails to succeed,
Perforce must join the crew.”
“Then brief, declare,” said the brave St. Clair,
“A deed that a Knight may do.”
“’Mid the sleet and the rain thou must here remain
By the haunted greensward ring,
Till the dance wax slow, and the song faint and low,
Which the crew unearthly sing.
“Then right at the time of the matin chime,
Thou must tread the unhallowed ground,
And with mystic pace the circles trace
That inclose it nine times round.
“And next thou must pass the rank green grass
To the tables of ezlar red;
And the goblet clear away thou must bear,
Nor behind thee turn thy head.
“And ever anon as thou treadest upon
The sward of the green charmed ring,
Be no word expressed in that space unblessed
That ’longeth of holy thing.
“For the charmed ground is all unsound,
And the lake spreads wide below,
And the Water-Fiend there, with the Fiend of Air,
Is leagued for mortals’ woe.”
’Mid the sleet and the rain did St. Clair remain
Till the evening star did rise;
And the rout so gay did dwindle away
To the eldritch dwarfy size.
When the moonbeams pale fell through the white hail,
With a wan and a watery ray,
Sad notes of woe seemed round him to grow,
The dirge of the elfins grey.
And right at the time of the matin chime
His mystic pace began,
And murmurs deep around him did creep
Like the moans of a murdered man.
The matin bell was tolling farewell
When he reached the central ring,
And there he beheld, to ice congealed,
That crew, with the Elfin-King.
For aye, at the knell of the matin bell,
When the black monks wend to pray,
The spirits unblessed have a glimpse of rest
Before the dawn of day.
The sigh of the trees, and the rush of the breeze,
Then pause on the lonely hill;
And the frost of the dead clings round their head,
And they slumber cold and still.
The Knight took up the emerald cup,
And the ravens hoarse did scream,
And the shuddering elfins half rose up,
And murmured in their dream:
They inwardly mourned, and the thin blood returned
To every icy limb;
And each frozen eye, so cold and so dry,
’Gan roll with lustre dim.
Then brave St. Clair did turn him there
To retrace the mystic track,
He heard the sigh of his lady fair,
Who sobbed behind his back.
He started quick and his heart beat thick,
And he listened in wild amaze;
But the parting bell on his ear it fell,
And he did not turn to gaze.
With panting breast as he forward pressed,
He trod on a mangled head;
And the skull did scream, and the voice did seem
The voice of his mother dead.
He shuddering trode: on the great name of God
He thought—but he nought did say;
And the greensward did shrink, as about to sink,
And loud laughed the Elfins grey.
And loud did resound, o’er the unblessed ground,
The wings of the blue Elf-King;
And the ghostly crew to reach him flew,
But he crossed the charméd ring;
The morning was grey, and dying away
Was the sound of the matin bell;
And far to the west the fays that ne’er rest,
Fled where the moonbeams fell.
And Sir Geoffrey the Bold, on the unhallowed mould,
Arose from the green witch-grass;
And he felt his limbs, like a dead man’s, cold,
And he wist not where he was.
And that cup so rare, which the brave St. Clair
Did bear from the ghostly crew,
Was suddenly changed, from the emerald fair,
To the ragged whinstone blue;
And instead of the ale that mantled there
Was the murky midnight dew.
John Leyden.
Notes
2 Rye-grass.
3 Northern Lights.