“THEY made her a grave, too cold and damp | |
| For a soul so warm and true: | |
| And she ’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp, | |
| Where, all night long, by a firefly lamp, | |
| She paddles her white canoe. | 5 |
| |
| “And her firefly lamp I soon shall see, | |
| And her paddle I soon shall hear; | |
| Long and loving our life shall be, | |
| And I ’ll hide the maid in a cypress-tree, | |
| When the footstep of Death is near.” | 10 |
| |
| Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds,— | |
| His path was rugged and sore, | |
| Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds, | |
| Through many a fen, where the serpent feeds, | |
| And man never trod before. | 15 |
| |
| And, when on the earth he sunk to sleep, | |
| If slumber his eyelids knew, | |
| He lay, where the deadly vine doth weep | |
| Its venomous tear and nightly steep | |
| The flesh with blistering dew! | 20 |
| |
| And near him the she-wolf stirred the brake, | |
| And the copper-snake breathed in his ear, | |
| Till he starting cried, from his dream awake, | |
| “Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake, | |
| And the white canoe of my dear?” | 25 |
| |
| He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright | |
| Quick over its surface played,— | |
| “Welcome,” he said, “my dear-one’s light!” | |
| And the dim shore echoed, for many a night, | |
| The name of the death-cold maid. | 30 |
| |
| Till he hollowed a boat of the birchen bark, | |
| Which carried him off from shore; | |
| Far, far he followed the meteor spark, | |
| The wind was high and the clouds were dark, | |
| And the boat returned no more. | 35 |
| |
| But oft, from the Indian hunter’s camp | |
| This lover and maid so true | |
| Are seen at the hour of midnight damp | |
| To cross the Lake by a firefly lamp, | |
| And paddle their white canoe! | 40 |
| |
