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.
