She lean’d her tear-stain’d cheek of health
    Upon her lily arm,
  Poor, hapless girl! she could not tell
    What caus’d her wild alarm.

  Around the roses of her face
    Her flaxen ringlets fell;
  No lovelier bosom than her own
    Could guiltless sorrow swell!

  The holy book before her lay,
    That boon to mortals given,
  To teach the way from weeping earth
    To ever-glorious heaven;

  And Mary read prophetic words,
    That whisper’d of her doom—­
  “Oh! they will search for me, but where
    I am, they cannot come!”

  The tears forsook her gentle eyes,
    And wet the sacred lore;
  And such a terror shook her frame,
    She ne’er had known before.

  She ceas’d to weep, but deeper gloom
    Her tearless musing brought;
  And darker wan’d the evening hour,
    And darker Mary’s thought.

  The sun, he set behind the hills,
    And threw his fading fire
  On mountain rock and village home,
    And lit the distant spire.

  (Sweet fane of truth and mercy! where
    The tombs of other years
  Discourse of virtuous life and hope,
    And tell of by-gone tears!)

  It was a night of nature’s calm,
    For earth and sky were still;
  And childhood’s revelry was o’er,
   Upon the daisied hill.

  The ale-house, with its gilded sign,
    Hung on the beechen bough,
  Was mute within, and tranquilly
    The hamlet stream did flow.

  The room where sat this grieving girl
    Was one of ancient years;
  Its antique state was well display’d
    To conjure up her fears;

  With massy walls of sable oak,
    And roof of quaint design,
  And lattic’d window, darkly hid
    By rose and eglantine.

  The summer moon now sweetly shone
    All softly and serene;
  She clos’d the casement tremblingly
    Upon the beauteous scene.

  Above that carved mantle hung,
    Clad in the garb of gloom,
  A painting of rich feudal state,—­
    An old baronial room.

  The Norman windows scarcely cast
    A light upon the wall,
  Where shone the shields of warrior knights
    Within the lonely hall.

  And, pendent from each rusty nail,
    Helmet and steely dress,
  With bright and gilded morion,
    To grace that dim recess.

  Then Mary thought upon each tale
    Of terrible romance:—­
  The lady in the lonely tower—­
    The murd’rer’s deadly glance—­

  And moon-lit groves in pathless woods,
    Where shadows nightly sped;
  Her fancy could not leave the realms
    Of darkness and the dead.

  There stood a messenger without,
    Beside her master’s gate,
  Who, till his thirsty horse had drunk,
    Would hardly deign to wait.