“She sat in her window like a dream, She moved not eye nor hand; Her heart was blind to the white moonbeam, And she saw not the early morning gleam Over the dewy land; Nor wist she of aught but a tale of wrong, That rang in her ears the dim day long. Her hair was like gold upon her head, But the snow has fallen there; And the blush of life from her face has fled, And her heart is dumb, and tranced, and dead, Yet wanders everywhere-- Like a ghost through the restless night, Wanders on in its own despight. But hither there comes a long-drawn sigh-- A thrill to her form, a light to her eye: Only a sigh on the wind, I wiss; Keep us and guard us from sounds like this! For she knew in the breath, for a mystic token, The words of the rede, by that graybeard spoken. The bridal robes are glistening fair In the gray eventide, Her veil upon her golden hair, And so goes forth the bride-- Who went before to guide astray All wayfarers from this way; Whose the voice that led her hence, How that graybeard came, and whence; Known were these to her alone, And she told the tale to none. The fountain springs out of the earth, Nor tells what there it sees; And the wind with a cry, ’twixt grief and mirth, Alights among the trees. She sat her down upon the stone, Her white robes trailed o’er the cold green turf, Her foot pressed on the dreary earth, Alone, alone, alone. Not an ear to hear, not a voice to tell, How the lady passed from the Lady’s Well. The lady sat by the Lady’s Well. When the night fell dark and gray; But the morning sun shone in the dell, And she had passed away. And no man knew on the coming morrow Aught but the tale of an unknown sorrow; And nought but the fountain’s silver sound, And the green leaves closing in around, And a great silence night and day, Mourned for her vanishing away. But peace to thee, Ladie, lost and gone! And calm be thy mystic rest. Whether thou dwellest here unknown, Or liest with many a kindred one, In the great mother’s breast; The woe of thy curse has come and fled, Peace and sweet honour to our dead!”