Ellen Gray :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ellen Gray

or, The dead maiden's curse. A poem, by the late Dr. Archibald Macleod [i.e. W. L. Bowles]

Bowles, William Lisle (1762-1850)

[epigraph]

II.

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Then on the clouds she gazed with vacant stare,
Or dancing with wild fennel in her hair ,
Sang merrily: “Oh! we must dry the tear,
“For Mab, the queen of fairies, will be here,—

She shall know all—know all,”—and then again
Her ditty died into its opening strain:—

“Lay me where the willows wave,
In the cold moon-light;
Shine upon my quiet grave,
Softly, queen of night!”

The children in their sports would pause and say ,
With pitying look, “There goes poor Ellen Gray.”

Feniculum vulgare, or wild fennel, common on the northern coast of Cornwall.

Who does not remember Crabbe's exquisite lines in his Village, and the affecting image of the children standing over the old man's grave?—

“Silent and sad, and gazing hand in hand!”