Chapter 6

Like a dead man gone to his shroud, The sun has sunk in a copper cloud, And the wind is rising squally and loud With many a stormy token,-- Playing a wild funereal air Through the branches bleak, bereaved, and bare, To the dead leaves dancing here and there-- In short, if the truth were spoken, It's an ugly night for anywhere, But an awful one for the Brocken!

For oh! to stop On that mountain top, After the dews of evening drop, Is always a dreary frolic-- Then what must it be when nature groans, And the very mountain murmurs and moans As if it writhed with the cholic-- With other strange supernatural tones, From wood, and water, and echoing stones, Not to forget unburied bones-- In a region so diabolic!

A place where he whom we call Old Scratch, By help of his Witches--a precious batch-- Gives midnight concerts and sermons, In a Pulpit and Orchestra built to match, A plot right worthy of him to hatch, And well adapted, he knows, to catch The musical, mystical Germans!

However it's quite As wild a night As ever was known on that sinister height Since the Demon-Dance was morriced-- The earth is dark, and the sky is scowling, And the blast through the pines is howling and growling, As if a thousand wolves were prowling About in the old BLACK FOREST!

Madly, sadly, the Tempest raves Through the narrow gullies and hollow caves, And bursts on the rocks in windy waves, Like the billows that roar On a gusty shore Mourning over the mariners' graves-- Nay, more like a frantic lamentation From a howling set Of demons met To wake a dead relation.

Badly, madly, the vapors fly Over the dark distracted sky, At a pace that no pen can paint! Black and vague like the shadows of dreams, Scudding over the moon that seems, Shorn of half her usual beams, As pale as if she would faint!

The lightning flashes, The thunder crashes, The trees encounter with horrible clashes, While rolling up from marsh and bog, Rank and rich, As from Stygian ditch, Rises a foul sulphureous fog, Hinting that Satan himself is agog,-- But leaving at once this heroical pitch, The night is a very bad night in which You wouldn't turn out a dog.

Yet ONE there is abroad in the storm, And whenever by chance The moon gets a glance, She spies the Traveller's lonely form, Walking, leaping, striding along, As none can do but the super-strong; And flapping his arms to keep him warm, For the breeze from the North is a regular starver, And to tell the truth, More keen, in sooth, And cutting than any German carver!

However, no time it is to lag, And on he scrambles from crag to crag, Like one determined never to flag-- Now weathers a block Of jutting rock, With hardly room for a toe to wag; But holding on by a timber snag, That looks like the arm of a friendly hag; Then stooping under a drooping bough, Or leaping over some horrid chasm, Enough to give any heart a spasm! And sinking down a precipice now, Keeping his feet the Deuce knows how, In spots whence all creatures would keep aloof, Except the Goat, with his cloven hoof, Who clings to the shallowest ledge as if He grew like the weed on the face of the cliff! So down, still down, the Traveller goes, Safe as the Chamois amid his snows, Though fiercer than ever the hurricane blows, And round him eddy, with whirl and whizz, Tornadoes of hail, and sleet, and rain, Enough to bewilder a weaker brain, Or blanch any other visage than his, Which spite of lightning, thunder and hail, The blinding sleet and the freezing gale, And the horrid abyss, If his foot should miss, Instead of tending at all to pale, Like cheeks that feel the chill of affright-- Remains the very reverse of white!

His heart is granite--his iron nerve Feels no convulsive twitches; And as to his foot, it does not swerve, Tho' the Screech-Owls are flitting about him that serve For parrots to Brocken Witches!

Nay, full in his very path he spies The gleam of the Were Wolf's horrid eyes; But if his members quiver-- It is not for _that_--no, it is not for _that_-- Nor rat, Nor cat, As black as your hat, Nor the snake that hiss'd, nor the toad that spat, Nor glimmering candles of dead men's fat, Nor even the flap of the Vampire Bat, No anserine skin would rise thereat, It's the cold that makes _Him_ shiver!

So down, still down, through gully and glen, Never trodden by foot of men, Past the Eagle's nest and the She-Wolf's den, Never caring a jot how steep Or how narrow the track he has to keep, Or how wide and deep An abyss to leap, Or what may fly, or walk, or creep, Down he hurries through darkness and storm, Flapping his arms to keep him warm-- Till threading many a pass abhorrent, At last he reaches the mountain gorge, And takes a path along by a torrent-- The very identical path, by St. George!

Down which young Fridolin went to the Forge, With a message meant for his own death-warrant!

Young Fridolin! young Fridolin! So free from sauce, and sloth, and sin, The best of pages Whatever their ages, Since first that singular fashion came in-- Not he like those modern and idle young gluttons With little jackets, so smart and spruce, Of Lincoln green, sky-blue, or puce-- A little gold lace you may introduce-- Very showy, but as for use, Not worth so many buttons!

Young Fridolin! young Fridolin! Of his duty so true a fulfiller-- But here we need no farther go For whoever desires the Tale to know, May read it all in Schiller.

Faster now the Traveller speeds, Whither his guiding beacon leads. For by yonder glare In the murky air, He knows that the Eisen Hutte is there! With its sooty Cyclops, savage and grim Hosts, a guest had better forbear, Whose thoughts are set upon dainty fare-- But stiff with cold in every limb, The Furnace Fire is the bait for _Him_!

Faster and faster still he goes. Whilst redder and redder the welkin glows, And the lowest clouds that scud in the sky Get crimson fringes in flitting by. Till lo! amid the lurid light, The darkest object intensely dark, Just where the bright is intensely bright, The Forge, the Forge itself is in sight, Like the pitch-black hull of a burning bark, With volleying smoke, and many a spark, Vomiting fire, red, yellow, and white!

Restless, quivering tongues of flame! Heavenward striving still to go, While others, reversed in the stream, below, Seem seeking a place we will not name, But well that Traveller knows the same, Who stops and stands, So rubbing his hands, And snuffing the rare Perfumes in the air, For old familiar odors are there, And then direct by the shortest cut, Like Alpine Marmot, whom neither rut, Rivers, rocks, nor thickets rebut, Makes his way to the blazing Hut!