Page:The Earliest English Translations of Bürger's Lenore - A Study in English and German Romanticism - Emerson (1915).djvu/89

Tramp, tramp, across the land they speede;^[1]
Splash, splash, across the see;
"Hurrah! the dead can ride apace;
Dost feare to ride with mee?

"The moone is bryghte, and blue the nyghte;
Dost quake the blast to stem?
Dost shudder, mayde, to seeke the dead?"
"No, no, but what of them?

"How glumlie sownes yon dirgye song!
Night-ravens flappe the wing,
What knell doth slowlie toll ding dong?
The psalmes of death who sing?

"It creeps, the swarthie funeral traine,
The corse is onn the beere;
Like croke of todes from lonely moores,
The chaunte doth meet the eere."

"Go, bear her corse when midnight's past,
With song, and tear, and wayle;
I've gott my wife, I take her home,
My howre of wedlocke hayl.

"Lead forth, O clarke, the chaunting quire,
To swell our nuptial song:
Come, preaste, and reade the blessing soone;
For bed, for bed we long."

They heede his calle, and husht the sowne;^[2]
The biere was seene no more;
And followde him ore feeld and flood
Yet faster than before.

Hallo! hallo! away they goe,
Unheeding wet or drye;
And horse and rider snort and blowe,
And sparkling pebbles flye.

How swifte the hill, how swifte the dale,
Aright, aleft, are gone!
By hedge and tree, by thorpe and towne,
They gallop, gallop on.

Tramp, tramp, across the land they speede;
Splash, splash, across the see;
"Hurrah! the dead can ride apace;
Dost fear to ride with mee?

1. Printed speed here, but speede in other cases of this thrice repeated stanza.
2. They heede is calle; presumably a misprint for his, though is for his is common enough in older writers.