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 cedars sing, And water-music murmuring.

Her calm, white feet,--once fleet and fast As Daphne's when a god pursued,-- No more will dance like sunlight past The gold-green vistas of the wood, Where every quailing floweret Smiled into life where they were set.

Hers were the limbs of living light, And breasts of snow, as virginal As mountain drifts; and throat as white As foam of mountain waterfall; And hyacinthine curls, that streamed Like mountain mists, and gloomed and gleamed.

Her presence breathed such scents as haunt Deep mountain dells and solitudes, Aromas wild,--like some wild plant That fills with sweetness all the woods;-- And comradeship with stars and skies Shone in the azure of her eyes.

Her grave be by a mossy rock Upon the top of some high hill, Removed, remote from men who mock The myths, the dreams of life they kill; Where all of love and naught of lust May guard her solitary dust.