Gurtha Poem by Emma Alice Browne

The lone winds creep with a snakish hiss
Among the dwarfish bushes,
And with deep sighing sadly kiss
The wild brook's border rushes;
The woods are dark, save here and there
The glow-worm shineth faintly,
And o'er the hills one lonely star
That trembles white and saintly.

Ah! well I know this mournful eve
So like an evening olden;
With many a goodly harvest sheaf
The upland fields were golden;
The lily moon in bridal white
Leaned o'er the sea, her lover,
And stars with beauty filled the Night-
The wind sang in the clover.

The halls were bright with revelry,
The beakers red with wassail;
And music's grandest symphony
Rung thro' the ancient castle;
And she, the brightest of the throng,
With wedding-veil and roses,
Seemed like the beauty of a song
Between the organ's pauses.

My memory paints her sweetly meek,
With her long sunny tresses,
And how the blushes on her cheek
Kissed back their warm caresses;
But like an angry cloud that cleaves
Down thro' the mists of glory,
I see the flowers a pale hand weaves
Around a forehead gory.

The road was lone that lay between
His, and her father's castle,
And many a stirrup-cup, I ween,
Quaffed he of generous wassail.
My soul drank in a larger draught
From the burning well of hate,
The hand that sped the murderous shaft
Was guided by my fate.

Red shadows lay upon the sward
That night, instead of golden-
And long the bride's maids wait the lord
In the bridal-chamber olden;
Ah, well! pale hands unwove the flowers
That bound the milk-white forehead-
The star has sunk, the red moon glowers
Down slopes of blackness horrid.