Glenara came first with the mourners and shroud:
Her kinsmen they followed, but mourned not aloud:
Their plaids all their bosoms were folded around;
They marched all in silence—they looked to the ground.
In silence they reached over mountains and moor,
To a heath where the oak-tree grew lonely and hoar:
"Now here let us place the grey stone of her cairn:
Why speak ye no word?" said Glenara the stern.
"And tell me, I charge you, ye clan of my spouse,
Why fold ye your mantles? why cloud ye your brows?"
So spake the rude chieftain; no answer is made,
But each mantle unfolding, a dagger displayed!
"I dreamed of my lady, I dreamed of her shroud,"
Cried a voice from the kinsmen all wrathful and loud;
"And empty that shroud and that coffin did seem:
Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!"
Oh, pale grew the cheek of the chieftain, I ween,
When the shroud was unclosed, and no body was seen!
Then a voice from the kinsmen spoke louder in scorn—
'Twas the youth that had loved the fair Ellen of Lorn:
"I dreamed of my lady, I dreamed of her grief,
I dreamed that her lord was a barbarous chief;
On a rock of the ocean fair Ellen did seem:—
Glenara! Glenara! now read me MY dream!"
In dust low the traitor has knelt to the ground,
And the desert revealed where his lady was found;
From a rock of the ocean that beauty is borne;
Now joy to the house of the fair Ellen of Lorn!
A FABLE FOR MUSICIANS.
BY CLARA DOTY BATES.
He grew as a red-headed thistle
Might grow, a mere vagabond weed—
Little Frieder—as gay with his whistle
As water-wagtail on a reed—
Blithe that was indeed!