Through the gorge of snow we go,
Tracking, tramping soft and slow,
With our paws and sheathèd claws,
So we swing along the snow,
Crowding, crouching to your pipes —
Shining serpents! Well you know,
When your lips shall cease to blow
Airs that lure us through the snow,
We shall fall upon your race
Who do wear a different face.
Who were spared in yonder vale?
Not a man to tell the tale!
Blow, blow, serpent pipes,
Slow we follow:— all our troop —
Every wolf of wooded France,
Down from all the Pyrenees —
Shall they follow, follow you,
In your dreadful music-trance?
Mark it by our tramping paws,
Hidden fangs, and sheathèd claws?
You have seen the robber bands
Tear men's tongues and cut their hands,
For ransom — we ask none — begone,
For the tramping of our paws,
Marking all your music's laws,
Numbs the lust of ear and eye;
Or — let us go beneath the snow,
And silent die — as wolves should die!