ters lave
Each mossy bank and cave.

He thitherward is wending, o'er the vale is night descending,
Quick his step, but quicker sending his herald thoughts before;
By rocks and streams before him, proud and hopeful on he bore him;
One star was shining o'er him--in his heart of hearts two more--
And two other eyes, far brighter than a human head e'er wore,
Unseen were shining o'er.

These eyes are not of woman, no brightness merely human
Could, planet-like, illumine the place in which they shone;
But Nature's bright works vary--there are beings light and airy,
Whom mortal lips call fairy, and Una she is one--
Sweet sisters of the moonbeams and daughters of the sun,
Who along the curling cool waves run.

As summer lightning dances amid the heavens' expanses,
Thus shone the burning glances of those flashing fairy eyes;
Three splendours there were shining, three passions intertwining,
Despair and hope combining their deep-contrasted dyes,
With jealousy's green lustre, as troubled ocean vies
With the blue of summer skies!

She was a fairy creature, of heavenly form and feature,
Not Venus' self could teach her a newer, sweeter grace,
Not Venus' self could lend her an eye so dark and tender,
Half softness and half splendour, as lit her lily face;
And as the choral planets move harmonious throughout space,
There was music in her pace.

But when at times she started, and her blushing lips were parted,
And a pearly lustre darted from her teeth so ivory white,
You'd think you saw the gliding of two rosy clouds dividing,
And the crescent they were hiding gleam forth upon your sight
Through these lips, as though the portals of a heaven pure and bright,
Came a breathing of delight!

Though many an elf-king loved her, and elf-dames grave reproved her,
The hunter's daring moved her more wildly every hour;
Unseen she roamed beside him, to guard him and to guide him,
But now she must divide him from her human rival's power.
Ah! Alice!--gentle Alice! the storm begins to lower
That may crush Glengariff's flower!

The moon, that late was gleaming, as calm as childhood's dreaming,
Is hid, and, wildly screaming, the stormy winds arise;
And the clouds flee quick and faster before their sullen master,
And the shadows of disaster are falling from the skies;
Strange sights and sounds are rising--but, Maurice, be thou wise,
Nor heed the tempting cries.

If ever mortal ne