milk-white steed,
To bear me to his father's bowers;
He promised me a little page,
To 'squire me to his father's towers;
He promised me a wedding-ring,--
The wedding-day was fixed to-morrow;
Now he is wedded to his grave,
Alas, his watery grave, in Yarrow!
Sweet were his words when last we met;
My passion I as freely told him!
Clasped in his arms, I little thought
That I should nevermore behold him!
Scarce was he gone, I saw his ghost;
It vanished with a shriek of sorrow;
Thrice did the water-wraith ascend,
And gave a doleful groan through Yarrow.
His mother from the window looked
With all the longing of a mother;
His little sister weeping walked
The greenwood path to meet her brother.
They sought him east, they sought him west,
They sought him all the forest thorough,
They only saw the cloud of night,
They only heard the roar of Yarrow!
No longer from thy window look,
Thou hast no son, thou tender mother!
No longer walk, thou lovely maid;
Alas, thou hast no more a brother!
No longer seek him east or west,
And search no more the forest thorough;
For, wandering in the night so dark,
He fell a lifeless corse in Yarrow.
The tear shall never leave my cheek,
No other youth shall be my marrow;
I'll seek thy body in the stream,
And then with thee I'll sleep in Yarrow.
JOHN LOGAN.
FAREWELL TO THEE, ARABY'S DAUGHTER.
FROM "THE FIRE-WORSHIPPERS."
Farewell,--farewell to thee, Araby's daughter!
(Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea;)
No pearl ever lay under Oman's green water
More pure in its shell than thy spirit in thee.
O, fair as the sea-flower close to thee growing,
How light was thy heart till love's witchery came,
Like the wind of the south o'er a summer lute blowing,
And hushed all its music and withered its frame!
But long, upon Araby's green sunny highlands,
Shall maids and their lovers remember the doom
Of her who lies sleeping among the Pearl Islands,
With naught but the sea-star to light up her tomb.
And still, when the merry date-season is burning,
And calls to the palm-grove the young and the old,
The happiest there, from their pastime returning
At sunset, will weep when thy story is told.
The young village maid, when with flowers she dresses
Her dark flowing-hair for some festival day,
Will think of thy fate till, neglecting her tresses,
She mournfully turns from the mirror away.
Nor
|