" Forsworn! " The fields all sighed, " forsworn! "
When Sylvia pined into her shroud;
And all the pastures lay forlorn,
O'ershadowed with a cloud.

The homesteads wept with childish sob,
" Forsworn! " and every wheel was dumb;
The looms were muffled, each low throb
Was like a funeral drum.

The maidens hid in Maytime grots,
Their distaffs twined with blossoms sweet,
With pansies and forget-me-nots.
And laid them at her feet.

" Forsworn! " they sighed, and sprinkled o'er

" And never more your ringing team
Made music in our happy dale;
Instead, an earthquake winged with steam
Roared through our sundered vale.

" And where yon river seaward runs,
The white-winged barges ceased to roam;
Instead, came great leviathans
Trampling the waves to foam.

" And there was rushing to and fro,
As if the nation suddenly
Made haste to meet some foreign foe
Impending on the sea.

" And all this horrid roar and rage —
The clash of steel and flash of ire

" You grew to her more fond and near,
And mine no more! Ah, never more
You brought the antlered forest deer
And laid it at my door.

" And ever round the hall and hearth,
These branching emblems of the chase
Mocked me with memory of the mirth
Which once made bright the place.

" No more 'neath autumn's sun or cloud
You paid to me the pleasing tax
Of labour at the swingle loud,
Breaking the brittle flax.

" No more when winter walked our clime
We woke the evening-lighted room,

" I know such dreams are empty, vain:
And yet may rest upon the heart,
Like chillness of a summer rain
After the clouds depart.

" And still the dream went on: — each hour
Some new-born wonder filled the dream: —
First came the labourers to o'erpower
And chain our little stream.

" A giant prison-wall they made; —
Our brook, recoiling in her fears,
Over our meadows wildly strayed,
And drowned them with her tears.

" And then they reared a stately home, —
Not one, but many, for this queen;

X.

" I bore you in; with my own hand
I tended you long nights and days;
And heard with pride how all the land
Was ringing with your praise.

" But when your deepest wounds were well, —
This, Leon, is the saddest part, —
A lady came with witching spell,
And claimed you, hand and heart.

" She came in all her southern pride;

IX

" And then I heard your neighing train, —
Its silver bells rang down the breeze, —
And saw the white arch of your wain
Between the roadside trees.

" Announced as by an ocean storm,
A horseman from the east in ire
Rode to retrieve his hound: his form
Was robed in scarlet fire.

" But when you saw our murdered field —

VII

" First of the mournful sights, I saw
Our flocks fly bleating from a hound,
And many a one his savage jaw
Dragged bleeding to the ground.

" The rest sought shelter in despair,
And in a brake were robbed and torn;
The cruel hound had an ally there
In every brier and thorn.

" In nightmare chains my feet were set,

VII.

Out of her tent, as one afraid,
The moon along the purple field
Stole like an oriental maid,
Her beauty half concealed.

And, peering with her vestal torch
Between the vines at Sylvia's door,
She saw two shadows in the porch
Pass and repass the floor.

On the far hill the dreary hound
Saddened the evening with his howl;

VI.

A lover's heart hath no repose;
'Tis ever thundering in his ear
The story of his joys and woes, —
The light remote, the shadow near.

And Leon, penning his fleecy stock,
Felt hope as painful as despair,
While one by one heaven's starry flock
Came up the fields of air.

True shepherd, — like the men of old, —

How sweet it is when twilight wakes
A many-voiced eve in May, —
When Sylvia's western casement takes
The farewell flame of day:

When cattle from the upland lead
Or drive their lengthening shadows home;
While bringing from the odorous mead
Deep pails of snowy foam.

The milkmaid sings, and, while she stoops,
Her hands keep time; the night-hawk's wail
Pierces the twilight, till he swoops
And mocks the sounding pail.

Then sings the robin, he who wears
A sunset memory on his breast,