THE DEAD OREAD.

Her heart is still and leaps no more

With holy passion when the breeze,

Her whilom playmate, as before,

Comes with the language of the bees,

Sad songs her mountain ashes sing

And hidden fountains’ whispering.

Her calm, white feet, erst fleet and fast

As Daphne's when a Faun pursued,

No more will dance like sunlight past

The dim-green vistas of the wood,

Where ev'ry quailing floweret

Smiled into life where they were set.

Hers were the limbs of living light

Most beautiful and virginal,

God-graceful and as godly white,

And wild as beautiful withal,

And hyacinthine curls that broke

In color when a wind awoke.

The wild aromas weird that haunt

Moist bloomy dells and solitudes

About her presence seemed to pant,

The happy life of all her moods;

Ambrosial smiles and amorous eyes

Whose luster would a god surprise.

Her grave be by a dripping rock,

A mossy dingle of the hill,

Remote from Bacchanals that mock,

Wine-wild, the long, mad nights and still,

Where no unhallowed Pan with lust

May mar her melancholy dust.