"George Bidder - Merlin's Youth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bidder George)

To where were fire and walls and home of man --
I last -- and to my home his foot-tracks followed me.

And from the West there came the fearful wail,
That ever made men's faces change and pale,
Of the old were-wolf of the woods; that through the dark
Howled when a man should die. And North again
A she-wolf screamed like a dead soul in pain: --
They cried there was a man soon to lie stiff and stark.

7

Once, twice, and thrice they cried; and every cry
Nearer and nearer; and with moonlit eye
She smiled upon me, mocking. I knew well
That all in arms I could not fight these foes;
High to the danger still my courage rose,
Nor, naked, owned their cries my funeral knell.

I seized her swiftly up from where she stood,
To bear her with me to the angry flood,
There swim for life or death; face to my face,
Heart to my heart, breath panting with my breath;
To live if I could live, die with my death,
And rot with me in one last long embrace.

"Boy," she laughed, "art afraid of these my friends?
The river but some cowardly mankin sends,
Who dares not face the forest! Stand your ground:
I promise you shall have no cause for fear!
These are my friends whom I have summoned here,
To do my pleasure fond, to do my bidding bound."

8

"Seal thou thy promise with a kiss!" I cried.
She kissed; -- and in my ears murmured the tide,
And in her eyes the moon and stars were pent,
And in her lips were past and future bliss,
All life, all thought, sunk in one burning kiss:
Stars, earth and heaven, in her eyes were blent --

And round the wolves were seated. Panting tongue,
Sharp teeth in cruel jaw, that hungry hung
Under the gleaming eyes; and all the air
Was noisome with their scent. The three that cried
Were foremost; and sat watching, side by side,
Where first from my young limbs the flesh to tear.

Dark shadows stretched behind them with strange stars