That soft white hand you laid in mine With a smile as I turned to go, Oh, Lady Maud, I marvel If you ever stoop so low, As to wonder what those tears meant, That glittered on its snow. But I know if you had dreamed the truth Your beautiful dark brown eyes Would only have grown more gentle, With a sorrowful surprise; For a nobler and a kinder heart Ne'er beat beneath the skies. You never meant to give me pain, But oh, 'twas a cruel good, I so low in the world's esteem, You of such noble blood, That you stooped to as gentle words and deeds, As ever an angel could. I blessed you for your brightness When you came unto our shore, For the dull earth caught a beauty It never had before; But you left a lonesome shadow, That will lie there evermore. How proud the good ship bore you Adown the golden bay, The sun's last light upon its sails-- I stood there mournfully; For I know it left the darkness-- Took the sunlight all away. THE HAUNTED CASTLE. It stands alone on a haunted shore, With curious words of deathless lore On its massive gate impearled; And its carefully guarded mystic key Locks in its silent mystery From the seeking eyes of the world. Oft do its stately walls repeat Echoes of music wildly sweet Swelling to gladness high-- With mournful ballads of ancient time, And funeral hymns--and a nursery rhyme Dying away in a sigh. Pictures out of each haunted room, Up through the ghostly shadows loom, And gleam with a spectral light; Pictures lit with a radiant glow, And some that image such desolate woe That, weeping, you turn from the sight. Shining like stars in the twilight gloom Brows as white as a lily's bloom Gleam from its lattice and door; And voices soft as a seraph's note, Through its mysterious chambers float Back from eternity's shore. In the mournful silence of midnight air You hear on its stately and winding stair The echoes of fairy feet. Gentle footsteps that lightly fall Through the enchanted castle hall, And up in the golden street. And still in a dark forsaken tower, Crowned with a withered cypress flower, Is a bowed head turned away; A face like carved marble white, Sweet eyes drooping away from the light, Shunning the eye of day. And oft when the light burns low and dim A haggard form ungainly and grim Unbidden enters the door; With chiding eyes whose burning light You fain would bury in darkness and night, Never to meet you more. Mysteries strange its still walls keep, Strange are the forms that through it sweep-- Walking by night and by day. But evermore will the castle hall Echo their footsteps' phantom fall, Till its walls shall crumble away. THE STORY OF GLADYS.