Classic Poem

Up rose the sun o'er moor and mead;
Up with the sun rose Percy Rede;
Brave Keeldar, from his couples freed,
Careered along the lea;
The Palfrey sprung with sprightly bound,
As if to match the gamesome hound;
His horn the gallant huntsman wound:
They were a jovial three!

Man, hound, or horse, of higher fame,
To wake the wild deer never came
Since Alnwick's Earl pursued the game
On Cheviot's rueful day:
Keeldar was matchless in his speed,
Than Tarras ne'er was stancher steed,
A peerless archer, Percy Rede;
And right dear friends were they.

The chase engrossed their joys and woes.
Together at the dawn they rose,
Together shared the noon's repose
By fountain or by stream;
And oft when evening skies were red
The heather was their common bed,
Where each, as wildering fancy led,
Still hunted in his dream.

Now is the thrilling moment near
Of sylvan hope and sylvan fear;
Yon thicket holds the harbored deer,
The signs the hunters know:
With eyes of flame and quivering ears
The brake sagacious Keeldar nears;
The restless palfrey paws and rears;
The archer strings his bow.

The game 's afoot! — Halloo! Halloo!
Hunter and horse and hound pursue; —
But woe the shaft that erring flew —
That e'er it left the string!
And ill betide the faithless yew!
The stag bounds seathless o'er the dew
And gallant Keeldar's life-blood true
Has drenched the gray-goose wing.

The noble hound — he dies, he dies;
Death, death has glazed his fixed eyes;
Stiff on the bloody heath he lies
Without a groan or quiver.
Now day may break and bugle sound,
And whoop and hollow ring around,
And o'er his couch the stag may bound,
But Keeldar sleeps forever.

Dilated nostrils, staring eyes,
Mark the poor palfrey's mute surprise;
He knows not that his comrade dies,
Nor what is death — but still
His aspect hath expression drear
Of grief and wonder mixed with fear,
Like startled children when they hear
Some mystic tale of ill.

But he that bent the fatal bow
Can well the sum of evil know,
And o'er his favorite bending low
In speechless grief recline;
Can think he hears the senseless clay
In unreproachful accents say,
" The hand that took my life away,
Dear master, was it thine?

" And if it be, the shaft be blessed
Which sure some erring aim addressed,
Since in your service prized, caressed,
I in your service die;
And you may have a fleeter hound
To match the dun-deer's merry bound,
But by your couch will ne'er be found
So true a guard as I."

And to his last stout Percy rued
The fatal chance, for when he stood
'Gainst fearful odds in deadly feud
And fell amid the fray,
E'en with his dying voice he cried,
" Had Keeldar but been at my side,
Your treacherous ambush had been spied —
I had not died to-day!"

Remembrance of the erring bow
Long since had joined the tides which flow,
Conveying human bliss and woe
Down dark oblivion's river;
But Art can Time's stern doom arrest
And snatch his spoil from Lethe's breast,
And, in her Cooper's colors drest,
The scene shall live forever.