Or evening murmur of the wimpling rill;
But there was heard that night no farewell strain,
As in foretime there ever used to be--
A stop! and then no more was heard again
That bashful lover's hapless minstrelsie.
Next morn the maid, with purpose to enjoy
The forest flowers and wild birds' early song,
Unto the greenwood went; and to employ
Her weary musing as she went along,
Love's magic memory from its depths upbrought
The notes that ever still so sweetly hung
About her heart; and as she gaily thought,
She sung them o'er as she had heard them sung.
Onward she moved: her dreamy, listless eye
Had leant upon a fragrant wild-rose bed,
And, glancing farther, what does she descry?
Stretched stiff and bloody, his sad spirit fled,
Yea, him whom when asleep she once had seen,
And had so often wished again to see,
Now dead and cold 'mong the leaves so green,
And all beneath the well-known greenwood tree.

"Good day, my ladye," then some one said--
It was Sir Hubert there close behind;
"He will sing no more, or I am belied,
For the reason, I wot, that he wanteth wind."
Up came the baron in angry vein;
He casts his eye on the body there;
He scans the features again and again
With a look of doubt and shudder of fear;