PRE-ORDINATION.

She bewitched me in my childhood,

And the witch's charm is hidden —

Far beyond the wicked wildwood

I shall find it, I am bidden.

She commands me, she who bound me

With soft sorcery to follow;

In a golden snare who wound me

To her bosom's snowy hollow....

Comes a night-dark stallion sired

Of the wind; a mare his mother

Whom Thessalian madness fired,

And the hurricane his brother.

Then my soul delays no longer:

Though the night around is scowling,

Keenly mount him blacker, stronger

Than the tempest that is howling.

At our ears wild shadows whistle;

Brazen forks the lightning o'er us

Flames; and huge the thunder's missile

Bursts behind us, drags before us.

Over fire-scorched fields of stubble;

Iron forests dark with wonder;

Evil marshes black with trouble;

Nightmare torrents thundering under:

In the thorn that past us races,

Harelipped hags like crows are rocking;

Stunted oaks have dwarf-like faces

Gnarled that leer an impish mocking:

Rocks, in which the storm is hooting,

Thrust a humpbacked murder over;

Bristling heaths, dead thistles shooting,

Raven-haunted gibbets cover:

Each and all are passed, like water

Under-rolled into a cavern,

Till we see the Devil's daughter

Waiting at the Devil's tavern.

And we stay; I drain the beaker

In her hand; the draught is fire;

World-remembrances grow weaker,

And my spirit, one desire.

Course it! course it! Darkness passes

Like an uprolled banner tattered;

Walled before us mountain masses

Rise like centuries unscattered.

And the storm flies ragged. Slowly

Comes a moon of copper-color,

And the evil night grows holy,

Mists the wild ride growing duller.

In the round moon's angry scanning,

Demon-swift cross spider arches

Of the web-thick bridges spanning

Chasms of her kingdom's marches.

We have reached her kingdom, olden

As the sea that sighs its sadness;

Rocks and trees and sands are golden,

And the air a golden gladness.

Shapely ingots are the flowers,

And the waters, amber brightness;

Gold-bright, song-birds in the bowers

Sing with eyes of diamond whiteness.

And she meets me with a chalice

Like the Giamschid ruby burning,

And I drain it without malice,

To her towers of topaz turning.

Many hundred years forgetting

All that's earth: within her power

I possess her: naught regretting

Since each year is as an hour.