Replaced the slippers. Autumn came and went; The winter passed; another summer warmed The quiet pools; another autumn tinged The grape with red, yet while it hung unplucked, The mother ere her time was carried forth To sleep among the solitary hills. A long, still sadness settled on that home Among the mountains. The stern father there Wept with his children, and grew soft of heart, And Sella, and the brothers twain, and one Younger than they, a sister fair and shy, Strewed the new grave with flowers, and round it set Shrubs that all winter held their lively green. Time passed; the grief with which their hearts were wrung Waned to a gentle sorrow. Sella, now, Was often absent from the patriarch's board; The slippers hung no longer in the porch; And sometimes after summer nights her couch Was found unpressed at dawn, and well they knew That she was wandering with the race who make Their dwelling in the waters. Oft her looks Fixed on blank space, and oft the ill-suited word Told that her thoughts were far away. In vain Her brothers reasoned with her tenderly: "Oh leave not thus thy kindred!" so they prayed; "Dear Sella, now that she who gave us birth Is in her grave, oh go not hence, to seek Companions in that strange cold realm below, For which God made not us nor thee, but stay To be the grace and glory of our home." She looked at them with those mild eyes and wept, But said no word in answer, nor refrained From those mysterious wanderings that filled Their loving hearts with a perpetual pain. And now the younger sister, fair and shy, Had grown to early womanhood, and one Who loved her well had wooed her for his bride, And she had named the wedding-day. The herd Had given its fatlings for the marriage-feast; The roadside garden and the secret glen Were rifled of their sweetest flowers to twine The door-posts, and to lie among the locks Of maids, the wedding-guests, and from the boughs Of mountain-orchards had the fairest fruit Been plucked to glisten in the canisters. Then, trooping over hill and valley, came Matron and maid, grave men and smiling youths, Like swallows gathering for their autumn flight, In costumes of that simpler age they came, That gave the limbs large play, and wrapped the form In easy folds, yet bright with glowing hues As suited holidays. All hastened on To that glad bridal. There already stood The priest prepared to say the spousal rite, And there the harpers in due order sat, And there the singers. Sella, midst them all, Moved strangely and serenely beautiful, With clear blue eyes, fair locks, and brow and cheek Colorless as the lily of the lakes, Yet moulded to such shape as artists give To beings of immortal youth. Her hands Had decked her sister for the bridal hour With chosen flowers, and lawn whose delicate threads Vied with the spider's spinning. There she stood