Towards the limits far of Faërie quick their anxious course they took, And the hill she entered first self-opened like a magic book; Forth she peeped, and backward turning to bestow one farewell look, Nothing saw she, nothing heard she, save a low and eërie wail With the rustle of the greenwood blending and the sunset gale. All was changed; and she, deep sighing, tottered on her lonesome way, Till she neared a stunted hamlet; children at their twilight play, As she stooped to raise a withering rosebud, by the path that lay, Shyly tittering; thus she spake them; “Laugh ye at my fresh-pulled roses?” “We laughed to see an old, old beldame picking up our cast off posies,” Said they; but she understood no word of what the bantlings uttered; And again they mouthed and mocked at that they said the old crone muttered. Soon she came where, blind with dotage, propped on staff, an old man stood; All his tresses white with age as with its snows a wintry wood. “Gaffer,” said she, “where’s the castle, that on yonder mountain piled Held the prince unpeered in honour? Late I left it, foolish child!” Mused a moment, recollecting; presently, the old man smiled: “Second childhood then I fancy must at least, good dame, be thine; I alone in all the region mind me of that lordly line; I alone some words remember of the tongue that then was spoke, By the noble race that here dwelt, ere they felt war’s iron yoke. King, peer, peasant, all were conquered, all uprooted at a blow; One disastrous battle gave the country to a foreign foe; Slain or banished all; but that’s well-nigh a hundred years ago. “Yonder castle’s crumbling ruin saw its lord, though dauntless, fall; Dame and daughter he beheld both slain; in vain his vassals all, In vain his son for crown and bride fought; he was left an idiot thrall. On the evening of his bridal, souls of war, those sea-kings came, And, ere midnight, tower and town were all engulphed in gory flame. Save the holy chaplain, none of all that princely house remained, And myself, the humblest menial, on the lands where once they reigned. He, in rock-hewn hermit’s cavern, life, with passion undefiled, Wore away, in trances murmuring blessings on some wandered child, Daughter of his Lord, ’twas counted, by the cursed invading host Killed; or wiled away by fairies; howsoe’er, the child was lost. Twenty winters since his clay from mine to earth’s cold arms was given; And so long his blessed spirit has been with the saints in heaven.” “Hold,” she cried, “I hear a weeping; I no longer love the light;” Back she started, and departed straightways through the deepening night. In the hill she heard a wailing and a sobbing sad and deep; And the crash of thousand harpstrings hands of desperation sweep; Then she laid her down, and, praying, slept the long unmorrowing sleep.