Another Version

" Yet in his prime, of promise very full,
Truly a grievous fate !
Many sweet years along life's way to cull
Young wedded folk may wait ;
They lived in one another 'tis averred " —
Pity ! yet I know more than they have heard.

He and the lady strolled into the wood
Where rose and bramble marry'.
Nigh buried in the full fern as they stood.
While nightingales yet tarry,
A film of glinting silver on the deep
Oreen fronds that under in mild fire steep.

What silent sunlight-gushes in the grass,
Rich-breathing oily fern.
And sapful herbage flowering as they pass.
How the long-purples burn !
Languid the air with foamy elder-bloom,
Blue flies in shining summer wheel and boom.

Exuberant young lavish life of all
Their senses overflowed ;
Noting some leafage-softened sunlight fall
Where skins of satin glowed,
Thitherward thrilling hands of each instole,
And eye sought eye, and lip sougiit lip, for goal.

Oh ! they had lightl}- dared the perilous slope
Smooth turf impending over,
Dallying playful ; now with ne'er a hope
Their guardian angels hover ;
His heart love-loyal yet to one at home,
Drugged with sense-fumes he palters there with doom !

For search him through, no thought nor love you find ;
In such a heat they sleep ;
One luscious hot dissolving sense doth blind
Fuse all their powers and steep ;
So bees men stupefy within the hive
Are reft of honey while they cease to live.

What angel may avert the triple loss
Of three poor human souls?
But while they lie, in wood-sorrel across
From one of nearest boles
Flits flustering a brown bird from her nest,
By them shy startled in her innocent rest ;

And troubling both nigh brings the woman to,
So half awakening him
By her coy shrinking ; but they startle through
Now, for the silence dim
Ruffles with rustling very near their nook :
A girl with her wood-bundle while they look

Passes unseeing them, but as she goes
Lightly she hums an air
That stabs him as the dearest one of those
His bride in days that were
Was wont to sing ; she fades among the leaves —
When lo! a shriek the wood's green quiet cleaves.

Breathless they listen till it shrills once more
Anguished, imploring, wild ;
He hurries eager from the woodland floor.
And now behold a child —
The girl three brutal men are dragging nigh ;
One kneels upon her frail form murderously.

" Quick ! help her ! " cries the lady ; " they are three ;
Nay rather let us fly ! "
Fierce unaware by him assailed they flee,
Nor will the maiden die ;
But in the strife was dealt to him the blow
That stained him crimson and that laid him low.

Yet he confided to me that he chose
Even in the moment's rush,
If this were Death, the friend, to clasp him close,
And so avert the crush
Inevitable of a soul's undoing,
Whelming two loved ones in its own fell ruin.

So leaning on the faithful breast he waned,
Safe now from rending it,
Nor either gentle nature had sustained
Death from his fury-fit —
The selfish man die victim to his love !
Warm tears of bliss or sorrow shall it move?