Home I bore my luckless maiden,
Home I bore her in despair;
Chilly blasts, with night-dew laden,
Rustled through her streaming hair.
Plunging then amid the forest,
Soon I found the stately tree,
Under which, when heat was sorest,
She was wont to sit with me.
Down my cheek ran tears in fever,
While with axe its stem I cut;
Soon it fell, and I with lever
Roll’d it straight to Emma’s hut.
Kiss’d her oft, and love empassion’d
Sung a song in wildest tones;
While the oaken boards I fashion’d,
Doom’d to hide her lovely bones.
Thereupon I sought the bower,
Where she kept her single hive;
Morning shone on tree and flower,
All around me look’d alive.
Stung by bees in thousand places,
Out I took the yellow comb;
Emma, deck’d in all her graces,
Past my vision seem’d to roam.
Soon of wax I form’d a taper,
O’er my love it cast its ray,
’Till the night came, clad in vapour,
When in grave I laid her clay.
Deep below me sank the coffin,
While my tears fell fast as rain;
Deep it sank, and I, full often,
Thought to heave it up again.
Soon as e’er the stars, so merry,
Heaven’s arch next night illum’d,
Sad I sought the cemetery,
Where my true love lay entomb’d.
Then, in sweetness more than mortal,
Sang a voice a plaintive lay;
Underneath the church’s portal
Emma stood in death array.