The Manor Lord

Beside the landsman knelt a dame,
And slowly pushed the pages o’er;
Still by the hearth-fire’s spending flame
She waited, while a hollow roar
Came from the chimney, and the breath
Of twice seven hounds upon the floor;
And, save the old man’s labored moan,
The night had no sound more.

The fire flickered; with a start
The master hound upflung his head;
Sudden he whined, when with one spring
Each hunter bounded from his bed,—
And through rent blind and bolted door
All voiceless every creature fled;
The blinking watcher closed her book;
“Amen, our lord is dead!”