The mansion rung with Mary’s name,
    For dreadful news he bore—­
  A dying mother wish’d to look
    Upon her child once more.

  The words were, “Haste, ere life be gone;”
    Then was she quickly plac’d
  Behind him on the hurrying steed,
    Which soon the woods retrac’d.

  Now they have pass’d o’er Morton Bridge,
    While smil’d the moon above
  Upon the ruffian and his prey—­
    The hawk and harmless dove.

  The towering elms divide their tops;
    And now a dismal heath
  Proclaims her “final doom” is near
    The awful hour of death!

  The villain check’d his weary horse,
    And spoke of trust betray’d;
  And Mary’s heart grew sick with fright,
    As, answering, thus she said—­

  “Oh! kill me not until I see
    My mother’s face again! 
  Ride on, in mercy, horseman, ride,
    And let us reach the lane!

  “There slay me by my mother’s door,
    And I will pray for thee—­
  For she shall find her daughter’s corse”—­
    “No, girl, it cannot be.

  “This heath thou shalt not cross, for soon
    Its earth will hide thy form;
  That babbling tongue of thine shall make
    A morsel for the worm!”

  She leap’d upon the ling-clad heath,
    And, nerv’d with phrensied fear,
  Pursued her slippery way across,
    Until the wood was near.

  But nearer still two fiends appear’d,
    Like hunters of the fawn,
  Who cast their cumb’ring cloaks away,
    Beside that forest lone;

  And bounded swifter than the maid,
    Who nearly ’scap’d their wrath,
  For well she knew that woody glade,
    And every hoary path,

  Obscur’d by oak and hazel bush,
    Where milk-maid’s merry song
  Had often charm’d her lover’s ear,
    Who blest her silv’ry tongue.

  But Mary miss’d the woodland stile—­
    The hedge-row was not high;
  She gain’d its prickly top, and now
    Her murderers were nigh.

  A slender tree her fingers caught—­
    It bent beneath her weight;
  ’Twas false as love and Mary’s fate! 
    Deceiving as the night!

  She fell—­and villagers relate
    No more of Mary’s hour,
  But how she rose with deadly might,
    And, with a maniac’s power,

  Fought with her murd’rers till they broke
    Her slender arm in twain: 
  That none could e’er discover where
    The maiden’s corse was lain.

  When wand’ring by that noiseless wood,
    Forsaken by the bee,
  Each rev’rend chronicler displays
    The bent and treach’rous tree.

  Pointing the barkless spot to view,
    Which Mary’s hand embrac’d,
  They shake their hoary locks, and say,
    “It ne’er can be effac’d!”

* * H.

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