| THE WILD HUNT copyright Lisa Stock 2004 I thought to lie down and die But they passed over me! A crush of hooves into the earth Thunder at my side And he came with the Host of winter Cold, the night was black No stars, no light Just the sound of his breathing at my back And then they passed over me! Dogs wailed from the forest Men cried from the Wood, "Wod! Wod!' and all went dead. But my love was still alive. I lifted his body from the snow And shielded him from Oden's hounds. "Wod!" And they came again! Howls and screams shook the ground, A hundred, nay, a thousand dark horsemen tore the sky. I faced the Host, Looked Fury in the eye, And awaited their wrath. But they had not come for me! Why then my Love? Why the man I held? A pain pierced my lungs like to rip the breath from me And hopelessness filled my heart. I broke, I bound, And fell into pieces. Sorrow and shame overtook my limbs And I cowered from familiar dissent. It was not the Wild Hunt that had claimed my soul! My tears came not from the host of death Rotting with knots of decaying flesh But from the hatred of the man in my arms Toward me. I stepped back from my lover, Placed his cold heart upon the ground. The night grew silent, The air grew thick I wavered in the presence of massacre. But my spirit broke no more. My spirit broke no more! And so I left him as their prey. I fled through the forest, Ran from his terrible fate And, "Wod!", came the cry, Then it died away. |