No emerald spring, no royal autumn-red,

no glint of morn or sullen vanquish’d day

might venture against this obscene horror’s sway

blackly from the witch-blasted branches shed.

No silver bells around the bridle-head

ripple, and on no quest the pennons play:

the path’s romance is shuddering disarray,

or eaten by the marsh: the knights are dead.

The Lady of the Forest was a tale:

of the white unicorns that round her sleep

gamboll’d, no turf retains a print; and man,

rare traveller, feels, athwart the knitted bale

watching, now lord of loathly deaths that creep,

maliciously the senile leer of Pan.