Tracking, Tramping Soft and Low

 The Wolf-Tamer
by Elizabeth Stoddard 

Through the gorge of snow we go,
 Tracking, tramping soft and slow,
 With our paws and sheathed 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!