| |
| SHE roves through shadowy solitudes, | |
| Where scentless herbs and fragile flowers | |
| Pine in the gloom that ever broods | |
| Around her sylvan bowers. | |
| |
| No winds amid the branches sigh, | 5 |
| No football wakes the sodden ground; | |
| And the cold streams that hurry by | |
| Flow on without a sound. | |
| |
| Strange, voiceless birds from spray to spray | |
| Flit silently; and all day long | 10 |
| The dancing midges round her play, | |
| But sing no elfin song. | |
| |
| The haunting twilight ebbs and flows; | |
| Chill is the night, wan is the morn; | |
| Through this dim wood no minstrel goes, | 15 |
| No hunter winds his horn. | |
| |
| No panting stag seeks yon dark pool; | |
| No shepherd calls his bleating sheep | |
| From sunburnt meads to shadows cool, | |
| And grasses green and deep. | 20 |
| |
| Across her path, from reed to reed, | |
| The spider weaves his gossamer; | |
| She recks not where her footsteps lead, | |
| The world is dead to her. | |
| |
| Her eyes are sad, her face is pale, | 25 |
| Her head droops sidewise wearily; | |
| Her dusky tresses, like a veil, | |
| Down ripple to her knee. | |
| |
| How many a cycle hath she trod | |
| Each mossy aisle, each leafy dell! | 30 |
| Alas, her feet with silence shod | |
| Ne’er flee the hateful spell! | |
| |
