When down the Hartz the echoes swarm He rides beneath the sounding storm With mad "halloo!" and wild alarm Of hound and horn—a wonder, With his hunter black as night, Ban-dogs fleet and fast as light, And a stag as silver white Drives before, like mist, in flight, Glimmering 'neath the bursten thunder. The were-wolf shuns his ruinous track, Long-howling hid in braken black; Around the forests reel and crack And mountain torrents tumble; And the spirits of the air
Whistling whirl with scattered hair, Teeth that flash and eyes that glare, 'Round him as he chases there With a noise of rains that rumble. From thick Thuringian thickets growl Fierce, fearful monsters black and foul; And close before him a stritch-owl Wails like a ghost unquiet: Then the clouds aside are driven And the moonlight, stormy striven. Falls around the castle riven Of the Dumburg, and the heaven Maddens then with blacker riot.