Page:Poems of Sentiment and Imagination.djvu/25

Rh But in the deep shade of the violet dells,

Are the spirits that tell us of lovers' farewells;

And we hear them at night when the flower-oping breeze

Just rustles the boughs of the leaf-laden trees.

They tell of the love of the dark forest maid,

Of the words that were said 'neath the willow-bough's shade;

Of the anger of rivals, the challenge to fight,

Of the death of the brave, and the funeral rite;

Of the maiden's mad sorrow; and whispering wild,

They tell of the grief of the chief for his child—

That beneath the lake's waters, so dark and so deep,

The maiden sank down to her visionless sleep.

And the girls of the forest at evening brought flowers,

The fairest that grew in their wild woodland bowers,

And scattered them over the lake's silver breast,

And chanted a dirge that the spirit might rest.

But 'twas whispered the maiden came up from the wave,

To ramble at eve with her warrior brave;

And the spirits that dwell in the woods caught the tone

Of the maiden's low wail and the warrior's moan;

And still at this hour, when the breeze wanders by,

Breathe out in the forest their low mournful cry.

Have you not been where the silver beech flingeth

Its arms o'er the spot where the wood-fountain springeth?

Where the fern and the wild-flower bend o'er its brim

To gaze on their shadows so dark and so dim;

Where the moss like a carpet of velvet is spread,

And its roots are inwove with the bright golden thread;

Where the wintergreen berries like ruby-drops shine,

And the turf is embroidered with wild cypress vine;

Where the brave olden trees, towering up to the blue,

Let scarcely a glimpse of the golden day through;

Where the light is as soft as the orange-tree's bloom,

And the birds rarely sing, overpowered with perfume?

It was here that the tawny-browed queen of the wood

Came to dream of her love in the dim solitude: