He builds, in the starlight clear and cold,
A palace of ice where his torrent falls,
With turret, and arch, and fretwork fair,
And pillars blue as the summer air.

For whom are those glorious chambers wrought,
In the cold and cloudless night?

Is there neither spirit nor motion of thought
In forms so lovely, and hues so bright?
Hear what the grey-haired woodmen tell
Of this wild stream and its rocky dell.

"Twas hither a youth of dreamy mood, A hundred winters ago,

Had wandered over the mighty wood,

When the panther's track was fresh on the snow, And keen were the winds that came to stir

The long dark boughs of the hemlock fir.

Too gentle of mien he seemed and fair,
For a child of those rugged steeps;
His home lay low in the valley where

The kingly Hudson rolls to the deeps;
But he wore the hunter's frock that day,
And a slender gun on his shoulder lay.

And here he paused, and against the trunk
Of a tall grey linden leant,

When the broad clear orb of the sun had sunk
From his path in the frosty firmament,

And over the round dark edge of the hill
A cold green light was quivering still.

And the crescent moon, high over the green,
From a sky of crimson shone,

On that icy palace, whose towers were seen
To sparkle as if with stars of their own;
While the water fell with a hollow sound,
'Twixt the glistening pillars ranged around.

ΙΟ

20

330

40

Is that a being of life, that moves

Where the crystal battlements rise?
A maiden watching the moon she loves,

At the twilight hour, with pensive eyes?
Was that a garment which seemed to gleam
Betwixt his eye and the falling stream?

'Tis only the torrent tumbling o'er,

In the midst of those glassy walls,
Gushing, and plunging, and beating the floor
Of the rocky basin in which it falls.
'Tis only the torrent-but why that start?
Why gazes the youth with a throbbing heart?

He thinks no more of his home afar,

Where his sire and sister wait.

He heeds no longer how star after star

Looks forth on the night as the hour grows late.
He heeds not the snow-wreaths, lifted and cast
From a thousand boughs, by the rising blast.
His thoughts are alone of those who dwell
In the halls of frost and snow,

Who pass where the crystal domes upswell
From the alabaster floors below,

Where the frost-trees shoot with leaf and spray,
And frost-gems scatter a silvery day.

'And oh, that those glorious haunts were mine!'
He speaks, and throughout the glen
Thin shadows swim in the faint moonshine,
And take a ghastly likeness of men,
As if the slain by the wintry storms
Came forth to the air in their earthly forms.

There pass the chasers of seal and whale,
With their weapons quaint and grim,
And bands of warriors in glittering mail,

And herdsmen and hunters huge of limb.
There are naked arms, with bow and spear,
And furry gauntlets the carbine rear.

50

60

70

There are mothers-and oh, how sadly their eyes
On their children's white brows rest!
There are youthful lovers-the maiden lies,

In a seeming sleep, on the chosen breast;
There are fair wan women with moonstruck air,
The snow stars flecking their long loose hair.

They eye him not as they pass along,
But his hair stands up with dread,

80

When he feels that he moves with that phantom throng,
Till those icy turrets are over his head,
And the torrent's roar as they enter seems
Like a drowsy murmur heard in dreams.

The glittering threshold is scarcely passed,
When there gathers and wraps him round
A thick white twilight, sullen and vast,

In which there is neither form nor sound;
The phantoms, the glory, vanish all,
With the dying voice of the waterfall.

Slow passes the darkness of that trance,
And the youth now faintly sees

Huge shadows and gushes of light that dance
On a rugged ceiling of unhewn trees,

And walls where the skins of beasts are hung,
And rifles glitter on antlers strung.

On a couch of shaggy skins he lies;
As he strives to raise his head,

Hard-featured woodmen, with kindly eyes,
Come round him and smooth his furry bed,
And bid him rest, for the evening star

Is scarcely set and the day is far.

They had found at eve, the dreaming one,
By the base of that icy steep,

When over his stiffening limbs begun
The deadly slumber of frost to creep,

And they cherished the pale and breathless form,
Till the stagnant blood ran free and warm.

90

100

THE STRANGE LADY

THE summer morn is bright and fresh, the birds are darting by,

As if they love to breast the breeze that sweeps the cool clear sky;

Young Albert, in the forest's edge, has heard a rustling sound,

An arrow slightly strikes his hand and falls upon

ground.

the

A dark-haired woman from the wood comes suddenly

in sight;

Her merry eye is full and black, her cheek is brown and bright;

Her gown is of the mid-sea blue, her belt with beads is strung,

And yet she speaks in gentle tones, and in the English tongue.

'It was an idle bolt I sent, against the villain crow; Fair sir, I fear it harmed thy hand; beshrew my erring bow!'

ΙΟ

'Ah! would that bolt had not been spent! then, lady,

might I wear

A lasting token on my hand of one so passing fair! !' 'Thou art a flatterer like the rest, but wouldst thou take with me

A day of hunting in the wilds, beneath the greenwood tree? I know where most the pheasants feed, and where the red-deer herd,

And thou shouldst chase the nobler game, and I bring down the bird.'

Now Albert in her quiver lays the arrow in its place, And wonders as he gazes on the beauty of her face: Those hunting-grounds are far away, and, lady, 'twere not meet,

19

That night, amid the wilderness, should overtake thy feet.'

Heed not the night; a summer lodge amid the wild is mine

'Tis shadowed by the tulip-tree, 'tis mantled by the vine; The wild plum sheds its yellow fruit from fragrant thickets nigh,

And flowery prairies from the door stretch till they meet the sky.

There in the boughs that hide the roof the mock-bird sits and sings,

And there the hang-bird's brood within its little hammock swings;

A pebbly brook, where rustling winds among the hopples

sweep,

Shall lull thee till the morning sun looks in upon thy sleep.'

Away into the forest depths by pleasant paths they go, He with his rifle on his arm, the lady with her bow, Where cornels arch their cool dark boughs o'er beds of winter green,

31

And never at his father's door again was Albert seen.

That night upon the woods came down a furious hurri

cane,

With howl of winds and roar of streams, and beating of the rain;

The mighty thunder broke and drowned the noises in its crash;

The old trees seemed to fight like fiends beneath the lightning-flash.

Next day, within a mossy glen, 'mid mouldering trunks were found

The fragments of a human form upon the bloody ground; With bones from which the flesh was torn and locks of

glossy hair;

They laid them in the place of graves, yet wist not whose they were.

40