nd Mary's linnet at the window sung. 110
Whilst in the air the vernal music floats,
The cuckoo only joins his two sweet notes:[53]
But those--oh! listen, for he sings more near--
So musical, so mellow, and so clear!
Not sweeter, where thy mighty waters sweep,
Missouri, through the night of forests deep,
Resounds, from glade to glade, from rock to hill,
While fervent harmonies the wild wood fill,
The solitary note of "whip-poor-will;"[54]
Mary's old mother stops her wheel to say, 120
The cuckoo! hark! how sweet he sings to-day!
It is not long, not long to Whitsuntide,
And Mary then shall be a happy bride.
On Sunday morn, when a slant light was flung
Upon the tower, and the first peal was rung,
William and Mary smiling would repair,
Arm linked in arm, to the same house of prayer.
The bells will sound more merrily, he cried,
And gently pressed her hand, at Whitsuntide:
She checked the rising thoughts, and hung her head; 130
And Mary, ere one year had passed--was dead!
'Twas said, and many would the tale believe,
Her shrouded form was seen upon that eve,[55]
When, gliding through the churchyard, they appear-- 134
They who shall die within the coming year.
All pale, and strangely piteous, was her look,
Her right hand was stretched out, and held a book;
O'er it her wet hair dripped, while the moon cast
A cold wan light, as in her shroud she passed!
I cannot say if this were so, but late, 140
She went to Madern-stone,[56] to learn her fate,
What there she heard ne'er came to human ears--
But from that hour she oft was seen in tears.
Mild zephyr breathes, the butterfly more bright
Strays, wavering, o'er the pales, in rainbow light;
The lamb, the colt, the blackbird in the brake,
Seem all the vernal feeling to partake;
The lark sings high in air, itself unseen,
The hasty swallow skims the village-green;
And all things seem, to the full heart, to bring 150
The blissful breathings of the world's first spring.
How lovely is the sunshine of May-morn!
The garden bee has wound his earliest horn,
Busied from flower to flower, as he would say,
Up! Mary! up this merry morn of May!
Now lads and lasses of the hamlet bore
Branches of blossomed thorn or sycamore;[5