106
Juliette.
And mingled with its lingering knell,
The echoed cry, half-heard, half-lost,
Startled the weary sentinel
Now slumbering at his post.
But wakened from his dreamful rest,
He deemed the sound some wandering ghost
Haunting the shades of sleep;
For like a bird upon its nest
The hushed air brooded o'er the deep,
And to his drowsy ear there crept
Only the voice of the choral waves,
Only the drip of the spray that wept,
And the ripples that sang through the weedy caves.
Nor marked he, ere again he slept,
The muffled dip of a hasty oar,
A steed's quick tramp along the shore.
When morning came, a shallop's keel
Grated the edge of the pebbly strand;
A maid's small foot, and a knight's armed heel
Were traced upon the sand.
The echoed cry, half-heard, half-lost,
Startled the weary sentinel
Now slumbering at his post.
But wakened from his dreamful rest,
He deemed the sound some wandering ghost
Haunting the shades of sleep;
For like a bird upon its nest
The hushed air brooded o'er the deep,
And to his drowsy ear there crept
Only the voice of the choral waves,
Only the drip of the spray that wept,
And the ripples that sang through the weedy caves.
Nor marked he, ere again he slept,
The muffled dip of a hasty oar,
A steed's quick tramp along the shore.
When morning came, a shallop's keel
Grated the edge of the pebbly strand;
A maid's small foot, and a knight's armed heel
Were traced upon the sand.
