Trembled on his lips as trembles bursting flower in freezing bud:
Ah, but silence,
Fateful silence,
Held the mighty feeling's flood.

Years had passed with autumn's splendor, like a glistening shower of gems;
Doubly rich the sunlight streamèd from the Yokul's diadems;
Once again in joyful rapture he his native vale beheld,
For the love long years had fostered whispered still of faith unquelled,
Spite of silence,
Hapless silence,
That the timid tongue had spelled.

And his boat shot swiftly onward: well the rowers plied their oar,
Till a heavy tolling reached them from the church-tower on the shore;
And a solemn train of barges slowly wound their pensive way
Through the hushèd waves that glittered o'er their image in the bay;
And the silence,
Listening silence,
Dimmed the splendor of the day.

O'er the barge that now drew nearer countless virgin lilies wept,
Telling that some white-souled maiden in the snowy bower slept.
Dumb he stood, and gazed in terror on the shroud and lilies sweet,
And a dread foreboding filled him, and his heart forgot to beat;
And in silence,
Deathlike silence,
Fell he at the boatman's feet.

So the parish-people told me; and as years went rolling by