life to hear him tell,
The courtly Clifford, how this befell!
He'd have known how it was: For, you see, in groping
For the secret spring of that panel, hoping
And fearing as nearer and nearer drew
The search of retainers, why, out she blew
The tell-tale taper; and, seeing this chest,
Would hide her a minute in it, mayhap,
Till the hurry had passed; but the death-lock, pressed
By the lid's great weight, closed fast with a snap,
Ere her heart was aware of the fiendish trap.

The Water Witch

See! the milk-white doe is wounded.
He will follow as it bounds
Through the woods. His horn has sounded.
Echoing, for his men and hounds.
But no answering bugle blew.
He has lost his retinue
For the shapely deer that bounded
Past him when his bow he drew.

Not one hound or huntsman follows.
Through the underbrush and moss
Goes the slot; and in the hollows
Of the hills, that he must cross,
He has lost it. He must fare
Over rocks where she-wolves lair;
Wood-pools where the wild-boar wallows;
So he leaves his good steed there.

Through his mind then flashed an olden
Legend told him by the monks:--
Of a girl, whose hair is golden,
Haunting fountains and the trunks
Of the woodland; who, they say,
Is a white doe all the day;
But when woods are night-enfolden
Turns into an evil fay.

Then the story oft his teacher
Told him; of a mountain lake
Demons dwell in; vague of feature,
Human-like, but each a snake,
She is queen of.--Did he hear
Laughter at his startled ear?
Or a bird? And now, what creature
Is it, or the wind, stirs near?

Fever of the hunt. This water,
Murmuring here, will cool his head.
Through the forest, fierce as slaughter,
Slants the sunset; ruby red
Are the drops that slip between
His cupped hands, while on the green,--
Like the couch of some wild daughter
Of the forest,--he doth lean.

But the runnel, bubbling, dripping,
Seems to bid him to be gone;
As with crystal words, and tripping
Steps of sparkle luring on.
Now a spirit in the rocks
Calls him; now a face that mocks,
From behind some bowlder slipping,
Laughs at him with lilied locks.

So he follows through the flowers,
Blue and gold, that blossom there;
Thridding twilight-haunted bowers
Where each ripple seems the bare