Sunlight has fled, and the shadow's near.
Come gather, ye children from elvenlands!
Diana has risen; her hounds we can hear,
And the coursing time is again at hand
By the call of the horn is the stillness shorn.
Time for us runs slow.
But we laugh and we sing as we go a-hunting,
And we run where the wild ones go-o-o
Yes, we run where the wild ones go!
Fast on the track of this moonlit land—
Ah, my companions, what is this we spy?
A pretty young maid and a handsome young man
Alone this night in the greenwoods lie.
Quicksilver thought is our magic born,
She with a doe's eye, a doe she will be.
And him we will give both the hooves and the horn;
As strong as a stag, as a stag goes he.
By the call of the horn is the stillness shorn.
Time for us runs slow.
But we laugh and we sing as we go a-hunting,
And we run where the wild ones go-o-o
Yes, we run where the wild ones go!
Our joy is the hunt, and how sweet the pain.
The chase, my pretties, is all of the fun.
If you fear us well, then your lives you may gain,
So run, my pretty playthings, run!
Too soon now with light will the sky grow pale.
How thin and how frail grow our shadowy forms.
Our hunting is done, and the spell it must fail,
For our power dies when the day is born.
By the call of the horn is the stillness shorn.
Time for us runs slow.
But we laugh and we sing as we go a-hunting,
And we run where the wild ones go-o-o
Yes, we run where the wild ones go!