But for what there passed on the road
All so mournfully and so slow."

"And what have you met on the road
That kept you so long and so late?"
"O full many an hour has gone
Since I left my father's gate.

"As I hastened on in the gloom,
By the road to you tonight,
I passed the corpse of a young maid
All clad in a shroud of white."

"And was she some friend once cherished,
Or was she a sister dead,
That you left your own true lover
Till the trysting hour had sped?"

"I could not see who it might be,
Her face was hidden away,
But I had to turn and follow
Wherever her resting lay."

"And did it go up by the town,
Or went it down by the lake?
I know there are but two church yards
Where a corpse its rest may take."

"They did not go by the town,
Nor by the lake stayed their feet,