"Hark! 't is an elfin-storm from faery land, Of haggard seeming, but a boon indeed: For o'er the southern moors I have a home for thee." 351 She hurried at his words, beset with fears, found. In all the house was heard no human sound. door; The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound, Flutter'd in the besieging wind's uproar; And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor. 360 They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall; hide, But his sagacious eye an inmate owns: groans. 369 And they are gone: ay, ages long ago 1820. cold. John Keats. 378 THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL "THEY made her grave too cold and damp And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Where all night long, by a firefly lamp, She paddles her white canoe. And her firefly lamp I soon shall see, Long and loving our life shall be, And I'll hide the maid in a cypress-tree When the footstep of death is near!" Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds,- Through many a fen, where the serpent feeds, And man never trod before! And when on earth he sunk to sleep, If slumber his eyelids knew, He lay where the deadly vine doth weep The flesh with blistering dew! 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, "O when shall I see the dusky Lake, And the white canoe of my dear?" He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright Quick over its surface played,- Till he hollowed a boat of the birchen bark, Far he followed the meteor spark, The wind was high and the clouds were dark, And the boat returned no more. 10 15 20 25 30 35 But oft, from the Indian hunter's camp, Are seen, at the hour of midnight damp, And paddle their white canoe! 1806. 40 Thomas Moore. |