Smitten with the lightning stroke,
From his seat the cavalier
Fell, and forth the charger broke,
Rider-free and mad with fear,--
Through the tempest and the night,
Like a winged thing in flight.
In the wind his mane blown back,
With a frantic plunge and neigh,--
In the shadow a shadow black,
Ever wilder he flies away,--
Through the tempest and the night,
Like a winged thing in flight.
From his throbbing flanks arise
Smokes of fever and of sweat,--
Over him the pebble flies
From his swift feet swifter yet,--
Through the tempest and the night,
Like a winged thing in flight.
From the cliff unto the wood,
Twenty leagues he passed in all;
Soaked with bloody foam and blood,
Blind he struck against the wall:
Death is in the seat; no more
Stirs the steed that flew before.
III.
And the while, upon the colorless,
Death-white visage of the dying
Maiden, still and faint and fair,
Rosy lights arise and wane;
And her weakness lifting tremulous
From the couch where she was lying
Her long, beautiful, loose hair
Strives she to adorn in vain.
"Mother, what it is has startled me
From my sleep I cannot tell thee:
Only, rise and deck me well
In my fairest robes again.
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