THE pines were dark on Ramoth Hill, Their song was soft and low; The blossoms in the sweet May wind Were falling like the snow. The blossoms drifted at our feet, The orchard birds sang clear; The sweetest and the saddest day It seemed of all the year, For more to me than birds or flowers, My playmate left her home, And took with her the laughing spring, The music and the bloom. She kissed the lips of kith and kin, She laid her hand in mine: What more could ask the bashful boy Who fed her father’s kine? She left us in the bloom of May: The constant years told o’er The seasons with as sweet May morns, But she came back no more. I walk with noiseless feet the round Of uneventful years; Still o’er and o’er I sow the Spring And reap the Autumn ears. She lives where all the golden year Her summer roses blow; The dusky children of the sun Before her come and go. There haply with her jeweled hands She smooths her silken gown,―― No more the homespun lap wherein I shook the walnuts down. The wild grapes wait us by the brook, The brown nuts on the hill, And still the May-day flowers make sweet The woods of Follymill. The lilies blossom in the pond, The birds build in the tree, The dark pines sing on Ramoth Hill The slow song of the sea. I wonder if she thinks of them, And how the old time seems,―― If ever the pines of Ramoth wood Are sounding in her dreams. I see her face, I hear her voice; Does she remember mine? And what to her is now the boy Who fed her father’s kine? What cares she that the orioles build For other eyes than ours,―― That other hands with nuts are filled, And other laps with flowers? O playmate in the golden time! Our mossy seat is green, Its fringing violets blossom yet, The old trees o’er it lean. The winds so sweet with birch and fern A sweeter memory blow; And there in spring the veeries sing The song of long ago. And still the pines of Ramoth wood Are moaning like the sea,―― The moaning of the sea of change Between myself and thee! * * * * * THE CHANGELING. FOR the fairest maid in Hampton They needed not to search, Who saw young Anna Favor Come walking into church,―― Or bringing from the meadows, At set of harvest-day, The frolic of the blackbirds, The sweetness of the hay. Now the weariest of all mothers, The saddest two-years bride, She scowls in the face of her husband, And spurns her child aside. “Rake out the red coals, goodman, For there the child shall lie, Till the black witch comes to fetch her, And both up chimney fly.