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ePaper created 2014-04-08, 18:05:31 | version 1.29.01
36 Till they come to where the rowan trees in lonely beauty grow Beside the Fairy Hawthorn grey. The Hawthorn stands between the ashes tall and slim, Like matron with her twin grand-daughters at her knee; The rowan berries cluster o’er her low head grey and dim In ruddy kisses sweet to see. The merry maidens four have ranged them in a row, Between each lovely couple a stately rowan stem, And away in mazes wavy, like skimming birds they go, Oh, never caroll’d bird like them! But solemn is the silence of the silvery haze That drinks away their voices in echoless repose, And dreamily the evening has still’d the haunted braes, And dreamier the gloaming grows. And sinking one by one, like lark-notes from the sky When the falcon’s shadow saileth across the open shaw, Are hush’d the maiden’s voices, as cowering down they lie In the flutter of their sudden awe. For, from the air above, and the grassy ground beneath, And from the mountain-ashes and the old Whitethorn between, A Power of faint enchantment doth through their beings breathe, And sink down together on the green. They sink together silent, and stealing side by side, They fling their lovely arms o’er their drooping necks so fair, Then vainly strive again their naked arms to hide, For their shrinking necks again are bare. Thus clasp’d and prostrate all with their heads together bow’d,