dancing down the oaks in the early morn: 
    There they strain and strive for the quarry, when the wind hath fallen
      dead
    In the odorous dusk of the pine-wood, and the noon is high o’erhead: 
    There oft with horns triumphant their rout by the lone tree turns,
    When over the bison’s lea-land the last of sunset burns;
    Or by night and cloud all eager with shaft on string they fare,
    When the wind from the elk-mead setteth, or the wood-boar’s tangled
      lair: 
    For the wood is their barn and their storehouse, and their bower and
      feasting-hall,
    And many an one of their warriors in the woodland war shall fall.

    So now in the sweet spring season, on a morn of the sunny tide
    Abroad are the Lymdale people to the wood-deers’ house to ride: 
    And they wend towards the sun’s uprising, and over the boughs he comes,
    And the merry wind is with him, and stirs the woodland homes;
    But their horns to his face cast clamour, and their hooves shake down
      the glades,
    And the hearts of their hounds are eager, and oft they redden blades;
    Till at last in the noon they tarry in a daisied wood-lawn green,
    And good and gay is their raiment, and their spears are sharp and
      sheen,
    And they crown themselves with the oak-leaves, and sit, both most
      and least,
    And there on the forest venison and the ancient wine they feast;
    Then they wattle the twigs of the thicket to bear their spoil away,
    And the toughness of the beech-boughs with the woodbine overlay: 
    With the voice of their merry labour the hall of the oakwood rings,
    For fair they are and joyous as the first God-fashioned Kings.

    Now they gather their steeds together, that ere the moon is born
    The candles of King Heimir may shine on harp and horn: 
    But as they stand by the stirrup and hand on rein is laid,
    All eyes are turned to beholding the eastward-lying glade,
    For thereby comes something glorious, as though an earthly sun
    Were lit by the orb departing, lest the day should be wholly done;
    Lo now, as they stand astonied, a wonder they behold,
    For a warrior cometh riding, and his gear is all of gold;
    And grey is the steed and mighty beneath that lord of war,
    And a treasure of gold he beareth, and the gems of the ocean’s floor: 
    Now they deem the war-steed wondrous and the treasure strange they
      deem,
    But so exceeding glorious doth the harnessed rider seem,
    That men’s hearts are all exalted as he draweth nigh and nigher,
    And there are they abiding in fear and great desire: 
    For they look on the might of his limbs, and his waving locks they see,
    And his glad eyes clear as the heavens, and the wreath of the summer
      tree
    That girdeth the dread of