They paused. A thousand slender voices round, Like echoes softly flung from rock and hill, Took up the strain, and all the hollow air Seemed mourning for the dead; for, on that day, The little people of the snow had come, From mountain-peak, and cloud, and icy hall, To Eva's burial. As the murmur died, The funeral train renewed the solemn chant. [Illustration] "Thou, Lord, hast taken her to be with Eve, Whose gentle name was given her. Even so, For so Thy wisdom saw that it was best For her and us. We bring our bleeding hearts, And ask the touch of healing from Thy hand, As, with submissive tears, we render back The lovely and beloved to Him who gave." [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] They ceased. Again the plaintive murmur rose. From shadowy skirts of low-hung cloud it came, And wide white fields, and fir-trees capped with snow, Shivering to the sad sounds. They sank away To silence in the dim-seen distant woods. The little grave was closed; the funeral train Departed; winter wore away; the spring Steeped, with her quickening rains, the violet tufts, By fond hands planted where the maiden slept. But, after Eva's burial, never more The Little People of the Snow were seen By human eye, nor ever human ear Heard from their lips, articulate speech again; For a decree went forth to cut them off, Forever, from communion with mankind. The winter clouds, along the mountain-side, Rolled downward toward the vale, but no fair form Leaned from their folds, and, in the icy glens, And aged woods, under snow-loaded pines, Where once they made their haunt, was emptiness. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] But ever, when the wintry days drew near, Around that little grave, in the long night, Frost-wreaths were laid and tufts of silvery rime In shape like blades and blossoms of the field, As one would scatter flowers upon a bier. [Illustration]