Then I stooped once more, and drinking, heard once more the silvery tinkling, Of that dim mysterious utterance, like some fairy harp of shell―― Struck by hand of woodland fairy, from her shadowy home and airy, In the purple clouds and airy, floating o’er that mystic dell, And from my sick soul its music seemed all evil to expel, Merely whispering, “Fare thee well!” Then my book at once down flinging, from my reverie up springing, Searched I through the forest, striving my vain terror to dispel, All things to my search subjecting, not a bush or tree neglecting, When behind a rock projecting, saw I there a white gazelle, And that soft and silvery murmur, in my ear so slowly fell, Merely whispering, “Fare thee well!” From its eye so mildly beaming, down its cheek a tear was streaming, As though in its gentle bosom dwelt some grief it could not quell, Still those words articulating, still that sentence ever prating, And my bosom agitating as upon my ear it fell, That most strange, unearthly murmur, acting as a potent spell, Merely uttering, “Fare thee well!” Then I turned, about departing, when she from her covert starting, Stood before me while her bosom seemed with agony to swell, And her eye so mildly beaming, to my aching spirit seeming, To my wildered spirit seeming, like the eye of Isabel. But, oh! that which followed after――listen while the tale I tell―― Of that snow-white, sweet gazelle. With her dark eye backward turning, as if some mysterious yearning In her soul to me was moving, which she could not thence expel, Through the tangled thicket flying, while I followed panting, sighing, All my soul within me dying, faintly on my hearing fell, Echoing mid the rocks and mountains rising round that fairy dell, Fare thee, fare thee, fare thee well! Now at length she paused and laid her, underneath an ancient cedar, When the shadowy shades of silence, from the day departing fell, And I saw that she was lying, trembling, fainting, weeping, _dying_, And I could not keep from sighing, nor from my sick soul expel The memory that those dark eyes raised――of my long lost Isabel. _Why_, I could not, _could_ not tell.