| |
| O, LOVERS’ eyes are sharp to see, | |
| And lovers’ ears in hearing; | |
| And love, in life’s extremity, | |
| Can lend an hour of cheering. | |
| Disease had been in Mary’s bower, | 5 |
| And slow decay from mourning, | |
| Though now she sits on Neidpath’s tower, | |
| To watch her love’s returning. | |
| |
| All sunk and dim her eyes so bright, | |
| Her form decayed by pining, | 10 |
| Till through her wasted hand at night, | |
| You saw the taper shining; | |
| By fits, a sultry hectic hue | |
| Across her cheek was flying; | |
| By fits, so ashy pale she grew, | 15 |
| Her maidens thought her dying. | |
| |
| Yet keenest powers to see and hear | |
| Seemed in her frame residing; | |
| Before the watch-dog pricked his ear, | |
| She heard her lover’s riding: | 20 |
| Ere scarce a distant form was kenned, | |
| She knew, and waved to greet him; | |
| And o’er the battlement did bend, | |
| As on the wing to meet him. | |
| |
| He came,—he passed,—an heedless gaze, | 25 |
| As o’er some stranger glancing; | |
| Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase, | |
| Lost in his courser’s prancing.— | |
| The castle arch, whose hollow tone | |
| Returns each whisper spoken, | 30 |
| Could scarcely catch the feeble moan | |
| Which told her heart was broken. | |
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