go down the Mere,
And track its course, till, lost in distance blue,
In mellow light it faded from her view.

It faded, and she never saw it more;--
Nor any human eye;--oh, grief! oh, woe!
It faded,--and returned not to the shore;
But far above it still the waters flow--
And none beheld it sink, and none could tell
Where coldly slept the form she loved so well!

But that sad day, unknowing of her fate,
She homeward turn'd her still reluctant feet;
And at her wheel she spun, till dark and late
The evening fell--the time when they should meet;
Till the stars paled that at deep midnight burned--
And morning dawned, and he was not returned.

And the bright sun came up--she thought too soon--
And shed his ruddy light along the Mere;
And day wore on too quickly, and at noon
She came and wept beside the waters clear.
"How could he be so late?"--and then hope fled;
And disappointment darkened into dread.

He NEVER came, and she with weepings sore
Peered in the water-nags unceasingly;
Through all the undulations of the shore,
Looking for that which most she feared to see.
And then she took home sorrow to her heart,
And brooded over its cold cruel smart.

And after, desolate she sat alone
And mourned, refusing to be comforted,
On the gray stone, the moss-embroidered stone,
With the great sycamore above her head;
Till after many days a broken oar
Hard by her seat was drifted to the shore.

It came,--a token of his fate,--the whole,
The sum of her misfortune to reveal;
As if sent up in pity to her soul,
The tidings of her widowhood to seal;
And put away the pining hope forlorn,
That made her grief more bitter to be borne.

And she was patient; through the weary day
She toiled; though none was there her work to bless;
And did not wear the sullen months away,
Nor call on death to end her wretchedness,
But lest the grief should overflow her breast,
She toiled as heretofore, and would not rest.

But, her work done, what time the evening star
Rose over the cool water, then she came
To the gray stone, and saw its light from far
Drop down the misty Mere white lengths of flame,
And wondered whether there might be the place
Where the soft ripple wandered o'er HIS face.

Unfortunate! In solitude forlorn
She dwelt, and thought upon her husband's grave,
Till when the days grew short a child was born
To the dead father underneath the wave;
And it brought back a remnant of delight,
A little sunshine to