, having tuned her instrument, she at first drew from it lively and
light tones, which soon darkened little by little, at the same time that
her countenance assumed a hue of deep melancholy. Mary Seyton looked at
her with uneasiness, although for a long time she had been used to these
sudden changes in her mistress's humour, and she was about to ask
the reason of this gloomy veil suddenly spread over her face, when,
regulating her harmonies, Mary began to sing in a low voice, and as if
for herself alone, the following verses:--

"Caverns, meadows, plains and mounts,
Lands of tree and stone,
Rivers, rivulets and founts,
By which I stray alone,
Bewailing as I go,
With tears that overflow,
Sing will I
The miserable woe
That bids me grieve and sigh.

Ay, but what is here to lend
Ear to my lament?
What is here can comprehend
My dull discontent?
Neither grass nor reed,
Nor the ripples heed,
Flowing by,
While the stream with speed
Hastens from my eye.

Vainly does my wounded heart
Hope, alas, to heal;
Seeking, to allay its smart,
Things that cannot feel.
Better should my pain
Bitterly complain,
Crying shrill,
To thee who dost constrain
My spirit to such ill.

Goddess, who shalt never die,
List to what I say;
Thou who makest me to lie
Weak beneath thy sway,
If my life must know
Ending at thy blow,
Cruellest!
Own it perished so
But at thy behest.

Lo! my face may all men see
Slowly pine and fade,
E'en as ice doth melt and flee
Near a furnace laid.
Yet the burning ray
Wasting me away
Passion's glow,
Wakens no display
Of pity for my woe.

Yet does every neighbour tree,
Every rocky wall,
This my sorrow know and see;
So, in brief, doth all
Nature know aright
This my sorry plight;
Thou alone
Takest thy delight
To hear me cry and moan.

But if it be thy will,
To see tormented still
Wretched me,
Then let my woful ill
Immortal be."

This last verse died away as if the queen were exhausted, and at the
same time the mandolin slipped from her hands, and would have fallen to
the ground had not Mary Seyton thrown herself on her knees and prevented
it. The young girl remained thus at her mistress's feet for some t