The Alpine Hunter

" Thou wilt not, then, our young lambs feed,
Our graceful lambs, along the mead ?
Nor where the laughing rills of spring
O'er the wild flowers their spray shall fling ? "

" Mother ! my mother ! let me go
To the far hills crown'd with snow."

" Shall not thy merry horn call home
The bleating flocks that wayward roam ?
Pleasant it is, in peaceful mood,
To hear their bells ring through the wood ! "

"Mother! my mother! let me go,
Ranging the mountains, high and low."

" These flowers of thine, so fresh and fair,
Claim from thy hands their wonted care.
No rose amid those crags has smiled
Nor breathed its perfume to the wild ! "

" Let the fair flowers in beauty blow.
Mother ! my mother ! let me go."

The boy went to the distant chase,
With a wild hunter's reckless pace ;
He sought untired his mountain prey,
Mid many a wild and fearful way.
Till rushed at last the light gazelle
From the dear haunt she loved so well.

On, on ! with quivering limb she sped ;
On, on ! he comes with bounding tread ;
O'er cleft and crag her footsteps flew,
And limbs as fleet their tracks pursue.
Vain that wild spring ! thy spareless foe
Bears the fell shaft and fatal blow.

Then might you mark the hopeless moan,
That almost spake with human tone ;
The eye that sought, with glance so bland,
For soft'ning heart or sparing hand ;
But marked not where, in wrathful mood,
The Spirit of the Mountain stood.

" Would'st thou bring Death and Sorrow here,
And human Wrath, and human Fear?
This shaft, by thy dark hand prepared,
Shall harm no more my peaceful herd."

How will his wrath that shaft employ ? —
It quivers in the hunter-boy.