Chapter III

Thou field of my own, thou field so fair!
So wide, extensive, fertile there!
Adorned with gems so gay and bright--
With flowers, and butterflies, and bees,
And plants, and shrubs, and leafy trees--
Thou hast but one ungrateful sight!

See there upon the broom-tree’s bough,
The young gray eagle flapping now,
O’er the raven black, that he tears asunder,
Whose warm red blood is dropping under,
And sprinkles the moistened ground below:
The raven black--a wild one he!
And the eagle gray--his enemy!

No swallow, gliding round and round
His homely happy nest, is found;--
But a mother is seen in the darksome vale,
Or sad by the raging ocean’s tide;
A sister sighs on the fountain’s side,
A lover weeps in the night-dews pale--
The sun shines forth--the dews are dried[1].

IV.[2]

A young maid sat upon the streamlet’s side,
And thought most tearfully on her bitter fate;
Her bitter fate, and on departed time--
Departed time--the glad, exulting time;
And there the lovely maiden robed herself,
She robed herself, with many adornings robed,
And waited anxious for her trusted friend--
Waited for her trusted friend:--a ruffian he!
He played the ruffian with the maid and fled:--
Alas! love’s flower of hope is withered!

Well may that lonely flower decay and die!
She calls in vain--she wipes her tears away:
Thee, rapid streamlet! they may fill, and roll
Over thy bosom--make thy bed of tears:
“I had adorned me for that faithless friend,
That faithless friend is fled:--he hath stolen all,
All my possessions but my grief:--that grief
He left in mercy, if that grief can kill.
Come, death! I veil me in thy shadows dim--
To thee I fly, as once I flew to him!”