Belle Brandon.
’Neath a tree by the margin of a woodland,
Whose spreading leafy boughs sweep the ground,
With a path leading thither o’er the prairie,
Where silence hung her night garb around;
Where oft I have wander’d in the evening,
When the summer winds were fragrant on the lea,
There I saw the little beauty Belle Brandon,
And we met ’neath the old arbor tree.
REPEAT.
There I saw the little beauty, Belle Brandon,
And we met ’neath the old arbor tree.
Belle Brandon was a birdling of the mountain,
In freedom she sported on the lea,
And they said the life current of the red man
Tinged her veins, from a far distant sea.
And she loved her humble dwelling on the prairie,
And her guileless happy heart clung to me,
And I loved the little beauty, Belle Brandon,
And we both loved the old arbor tree.
Repeat.—And I loved the little beauty, &c.
On the trunk of an aged tree I carved them,
And our names on the sturdy oak remain,
But I now repair in sorrow to its shelter,
And murmur to the wild winds my pain.
And I sat there in solitude repining,
For the beauty dream night brought to me,
Death has wed the little beauty, Belle Brandon,
And she sleeps ’neath the old arbor tree.
Repeat.—Death has wed the little beauty, &c.