Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/85

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A mile from yonder cot there lies A glassy pool by wave scarce ruffled, Silent and still, yet you may hear The sound of falling water muffled.

For ’neath the earth the stream flows on Under full many an emerald meadow, Under dank rock and mossy cave, All sleeping in eternal shadow.

And though the waters seem to flow A measured slowly-gliding current, A hundred yards or two below They issue forth a foaming torrent:

From that dark pool, when early dew Makes opal all the crimson heather, She used to bear a brimming jar, And on her wedding-day went thither.

She ne’er returned; yet how she died No trace remained, no tale or tiding: And yonder stream seemed still the same, Onwards, yet ever onwards gliding.

Hugh, though to outward eye the same
 * (And few could tell his heart was broken),

Thither, for ever searching, came,
 * And prayed of his lost bride some token.

One day, about the lower fall He lingered,—and his search was ended! A sunbeam, through the torrent wave, Lit on a skeleton suspended.

My tale is told: how she had died, This was the ghastly tale and tiding: Yet yonder stream is still the same, Onwards, yet ever onwards gliding.