’Ah, here’s a curse on hare and grouse,
   A curse on hart and hind;
And a health to the squire in all England,
   Leaves never a head behind.’

Her true love shot a mighty hart
   Among the standing rye,
When on him leapt that keeper old
   From the fern where he did lie.

The forest laws were sharp and stern,
   The forest blood was keen;
They lashed together for life and death
   Beneath the hollies green.

The metal good and the walnut wood
   Did soon in flinders flee;
They tost the orts to south and north,
   And grappled knee to knee.

They wrestled up, they wrestled down,
   They wrestled still and sore;
Beneath their feet the myrtle sweet
   Was stamped to mud and gore.

Ah, cold pale moon, thou cruel pale moon,
   That starest with never a frown
On all the grim and the ghastly things
   That are wrought in thorpe and town: 

And yet, cold pale moon, thou cruel pale moon,
   That night hadst never the grace
To lighten two dying Christian men
   To see one another’s face.

They wrestled up, they wrestled down,
   They wrestled sore and still,
The fiend who blinds the eyes of men
   That night he had his will.

Like stags full spent, among the bent
   They dropped a while to rest;
When the young man drove his saying knife
   Deep in the old man’s breast.

The old man drove his gunstock down
   Upon the young man’s head;
And side by side, by the water brown,
   Those yeomen twain lay dead.

They dug three graves in Lyndhurst yard;
   They dug them side by side;
Two yeomen lie there, and a maiden fair
   A widow and never a bride.

In the New Forest, 1847.

THE RED KING

The King was drinking in Malwood Hall,
There came in a monk before them all: 
He thrust by squire, he thrust by knight,
Stood over against the dais aright;
And, ’The word of the Lord, thou cruel Red King,
The word of the Lord to thee I bring. 
A grimly sweven I dreamt yestreen;
I saw thee lie under the hollins green,
And through thine heart an arrow keen;
And out of thy body a smoke did rise,
Which smirched the sunshine out of the skies: 
So if thou God’s anointed be
I rede thee unto thy soul thou see. 
For mitre and pall thou hast y-sold,
False knight to Christ, for gain and gold;
And for this thy forest were digged down all,
Steading and hamlet and churches tall;
And Christes poor were ousten forth,
To beg their bread from south to north. 
So tarry at home, and fast and pray,
Lest fiends hunt thee in the judgment-day.’