ine!
What boots it now that regret is keen?

That his hair you smooth, that you kiss his brow
What boots it now? what boots it now?...

She has haled him under the trysting oak,
The huge old oak that the creepers cloak.

She has stood him, gaunt in his battered arms,
In its haunted hollow.--"Be safe from storms,"

She laughed as his cloven casque she placed
On his brow, and his riven shield she braced.

Then sat and talked to the forest flowers
Through the lonely term of the day's pale hours.

And stared and whispered and smiled and wept,
While nearer and nearer the evening crept.

And, lo, when the moon, like a great gold bloom
Above the sorrowful trees did loom,

She rose up sobbing, "O moon, come see
My bridegroom here in the old oak-tree!

"I have talked to the flowers all day, all day,
For never a word had he to say.

"He would not listen, he would not hear,
Though I wailed my longing into his ear.

"O moon, steal in where he stands so grim,
And tell him I love him, and plead with him.

"Soften his face that is cold and stern
And brighten his eyes and make them burn,

"O moon, O moon, so my soul can see
That his heart still glows with love for me!" ...

When the moon was set, and the woods were dark,
The wild deer came and stood as stark

As phantoms with eyes of fire; or fled
Like a ghostly hunt of the herded dead.

And the hoot-owl called; and the were-wolf snarled;
And a voice, in the boughs of the oak-tree gnarled,--

Like the whining rush of the hags that ride
To the witches' sabboth,--crooned and cried.

And wrapped in his mantle of wind and cloud
The storm-fiend stalked through the forest loud.

When she heard the dead man rattle and groan
As the oak was bent and its leaves were blown,

And the lightning vanished and shimmered his mail,
Through the swirling sweep of the rain and hail,

She seemed to hear him, who seemed to call,--
"Come hither, Maurine, the wild leaves fall!

"The wild leaves rustle, the wild leaves flee;
Come hither, Maurine, to the hollow tree!

"To the trysting tree, to the tree once green;
Come hither, Maurine! come hither, Maurine!" ...

They found her closed in his armored arms--
Had he claimed his bride on that night of storms?

_Morgan le
Fay_

In dim samite was she bedight,
And on her hair a hoop of gold,
Like fox-fire in the tawn moonlight,
Was glimmering cold.

With soft gray eyes she gloomed and glowered;
With soft re