Lonely and stilly;
Shrill came the night-wind,
Piercing and chilly.

"Shrill blew the morning breeze,
Biting and cold,
Bleak peers the gray dawn
Over the wold.
Bleak over moor and stream
Looks the grey dawn,
Gray, with dishevelled hair,
Still stands the willow there--


THE MAID IS GONE!

"Domine, Domine!
Sing we a litany,--
Sing for poor maiden-hearts broken and
weary;
Domine, Domine!
Sing we a litany,
Wail we and weep we a wild Miserere!"

One of the chief beauties of this ballad (for the translation of which I
received some well-merited compliments) is the delicate way in which the
suicide of the poor young woman under the willow-tree is hinted at; for
that she threw herself into the water and became one among the lilies
of the stream, is as clear as a pikestaff. Her suicide is committed some
time in the darkness, when the slow hours move on tolling and tolling,