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.