Scott's Run o'erflowed my father's land
As in our woodland, walking there,
I went with Eunice hand in hand —
Gentle was she, unwooed and fair!
To tell her better than in speech
I, while she wove for me a wreath,
Cut her initials on a beech
And mine, who loved her, underneath.

" What's this? " spoke Eunice, coy to win,
" That crawls so blind across my feet? "
It was a hard-shell Terrapin,
Its eyes aye down, its pace not fleet;
" These slow things beat the Hare, they tell,
And humbly creep, boxed in their lair:
I'll cut your letters on its shell
And wait until it beats the Hare. "

Turned upside down it took her name
Upon its base, so brown and black,
Then with slow motion as it came,
The Terrapin resumed his track,
And like it, slow, I made my way
To her young heart till love was crowned,
And years went by until she lay
Within the woodland in the ground.

Heart-broken, old and past love's sin,
I listless roamed that tree to find;
'Twas gone, but not the Terrapin —
I found love's record on its rind.
" O, groundling, longest lived you are,
The grave is faster than your chase,
The Terrapin has caught the Hare
And Love was beaten in the race! "