Knight-Errant

Onward he gallops through enchanted gloom.--
The phantoms of the forest, dark and dim,
And shadows of vast death environ him--
Onward he spurs victorious over doom.
Before his eyes that love’s far fires illume--
Where courage sits, impregnable and grim--
The form and features of her beauty swim,
Beckoning him on with looks that fears consume.
The thought of her distress, her lips to kiss,
Mails him in triple might; and so at last
To Lust’s huge keep he comes; its giant wall,
Wild-towering, frowning from the precipice:
And through its gate, borne like a bugle-blast,
O’er night and hell he thunders to his all.