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A FAERIE ROMANCE. 229
The shadows above, and the bodies below, Lay and slept in the moonbeams slow.
And she sang, like the moan of an autumn wind Over the stubble left behind:
Alas, how easily things go wrong!
A sigh too much, or a kiss too long,
And there follows a mist and a weeping rain9
And life is never the same again.
Alas, lioto hardly things go right! 'Tis hard to watch in a summer night, For the sigh will come, and the kiss will stay, And the summer night is a winter day.
" Oh, lovely ghost, my heart is woe, " To see thee weeping and wailing so.
" Oh, lovely ghost," said the fearless knight, iC Can the sword of a warrior set it right ?
" Or prayer of bedesman, praying mild, " As a cup of water a feverish child,
" Soothe thee at last, in dreamless mood, " To sleep the sleep a dead lady should?
" Thine eyes they fill me with longing sore, " As if I had known thee for evermore.
" Oh, lovely ghost, I could leave the day, " To sit with thee in the moon away,
" If thou wouldst trust me, and lay thy head " To rest on a bosom that is not dead."
The lady sprang up with a strange ghost cry, And she flung her white ghost-arms on high ;
And she laughed a laugh that was not gay, And it lengthened out till it died away;
And the dead beneath turned and moaned,
And the yew-trees above they shuddered and groaned.
"Will he love me twice with a love that is vain? "Will he kill the poor ghost yet again? |
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