University of Virginia Library


34

VANISHINGS

My home beneath the wooded hill,
Where all day coos the dove,
When every vernal voice is still
That erewhile sang of love,
I roam about thee like a ghost,
A homeless ghost I roam,
For there to me old love is lost
And there is lost my home.
Beneath the arching trees I walk,
I tread the mossy way

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Where oft I heard the magpies talk
And many a woodland fay.
I lean upon the rustic gate
That bounds the haunted glade,
Where ofttimes I was wont to wait
And greet the trysting maid.
No damsel of a mortal mien,
No earthly love was she,
O'er realms of Faery she was queen
And ruled a magic sea:
Fled are her swift, white feet! I turn,
And where the waters rill

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Between the alders and the fern
Beneath the forest hill,
I wander in a musing mood
Along the pathway green,
Where dappling through the mazy wood
Descends the sunny sheen.
Would I had caught her to myself,
And kept her by my side,
And made that goddess, or that elf,
My one and only bride!
Then hand in hand across the land
We two had strayed along,

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And ever at her sweet command
Had bubbled up my song,
As purely as a spring that wells
Beneath a sacred mount,
Where palmers pause to fill their shells
And quaff the foaming fount.