This gossip, if old Walter heard,
He checked it with a scornful word: 
I never durst such tales repeat;
He was too serious and discreet
To speak of what his lord might do;
Besides, he loved my lady too. 
And many a time, I recollect,
They were together in the wood;
He, with an air of grave respect,
And earnest look, uncovered stood. 
And though their speech I never heard,
(Save now and then a louder word,)
I saw he spake as none but one
She loved and trusted, durst have done;
For oft I watched them in the shade
That the close forest branches made,
Till slanting golden sunbeams came
And smote the fir-trees into flame,
A radiant glory round her lit,
Then down her white robes seemed to flit,
Gilding the brown leaves on the ground,
And all the waving ferns around. 
While by some gloomy pine she leant
And he in earnest talk would stand,
I saw the tear-drops, as she bent,
Fall on the flowers in her hand.—­
Strange as it seemed and seems to be,
That one so sad, so cold as she,
Could love a little child like me—­
Yet so it was.  I never heard
Such tender words as she would say,
And murmurs, sweeter than a word,
Would breathe upon me as I lay. 
While I, in smiling joy, would rest,
For hours, my head upon her breast. 
Our neighbours said that none could see
In me the common childish charms,
(So grave and still I used to be,)
And yet she held me in her arms,
In a fond clasp, so close, so tight—­
I often dream of it at night. 
She bade me tell her all—­no other
My childish thoughts e’er cared to know: 
For I—­I never knew my mother;
I was an orphan long ago. 
And I could all my fancies pour,
That gentle loving face before. 
She liked to hear me tell her all;
How that day I had climbed the tree,
To make the largest fir-cones fall;
And how one day I hoped to be
A sailor on the deep blue sea—­
She loved to hear it all!

Then wondrous things she used to tell,
Of the strange dreams that she had known. 
I used to love to hear them well,
If only for her sweet low tone,
Sometimes so sad, although I knew
That such things never could be true. 
One day she told me such a tale
It made me grow all cold and pale,
The fearful thing she told! 
Of a poor woman mad and wild
Who coined the life-blood of her child,
And tempted by a fiend, had sold
The heart out of her breast for gold. 
But, when she saw me frightened seem,
She smiled, and said it was a dream. 
When I look back and think of her,
My very heart-strings seem to stir;
How kind, how fair she was, how good
I cannot tell you.  If I could
You, too, would love her.  The mere thought
Of her great love for me has brought
Tears in my eyes:  though far away,
It seems as it were yesterday. 
And just as when I look on high