William Cullen Bryant

The Strange Lady

The summer morn is bright and fresh, the birds are darting by, 
As if they loved to breast the breeze that sweeps the cool dear sky; 
Young Albert, in the forest’s edge, has heard a rustling sound 
An arrow slightly strikes his hand and falls upon the ground. 

A lovely woman from the wood comes suddenly in sight; 
Her merry eye is full and black, her cheek is brown and bright; 
She wears a tunic of the blue, her belt with beads is strung, 
And yet she speaks in gentle tones, and in the English tongue. 

”It was an idle bolt I sent, against the villain crow; 
Fair sir, I fear it harmed thy hand; beshrew my erring bow!” 
”Ah! would that bolt had not been spent, then, lady, might I wear 
A lasting token on my hand of one so passing fair!” 

”Thou art a flatterer like the rest, but wouldst thou take with me 
A day of hunting in the wilds, beneath the greenwood tree, 
I know where most the pheasants feed, and where the red-deer herd, 
And thou shouldst chase the nobler game, and I bring down the bird.” 

Now Albert in her quiver lays the arrow in its place, 
And wonders as he gazes on the beauty of her face: 
`Those hunting-grounds are far away, and, lady, ’twere not meet 
That night, amid the wilderness, should overtake thy feet.” 

”Heed not the night, a summer lodge amid the wild is mine, 
’Tis shadowed by the tulip-tree, ’tis mantled by the vine; 
The wild plum sheds its yellow fruit from fragrant thickets nigh, 
And flowery prairies from the door stretch till they meet the sky. 

”There in the boughs that hide the roof the mock-bird sits and sings, 
And there the hang-bird’s brood within its little hammock swings; 
A pebbly brook, where rustling winds among the hopples sweep, 
Shall lull thee till the morning sun looks in upon thy sleep.” 

Away, into the forest depths by pleasant paths they go, 
He with his rifle on his arm, the lady with her bow, 
Where cornels arch their cool dark boughs o’er beds of wintergreen, 
And never at his father’s door again was Albert seen. 

That night upon the woods came down a furious hurricane, 
With howl of winds and roar of streams and beating of the rain; 
The mighty thunder broke and drowned the noises in its crash; 
The old trees seemed to fight like fiends beneath the lightning-flash. 

Next day, within a mossy glen, mid mouldering trunks were found 
The fragments of a human form, upon the bloody ground; 
White bones from which the flesh was torn, and locks of glossy hair; 
They laid them in the place of graves, yet wist not whose they were. 
And whether famished evening wolves had mangled Albert so, 
Or that strange dame so gay and fair were some mysterious foe, 
Or whether to that forest lodge, beyond the mountains blue, 
He went to dwell with her, the friends who mourned him never knew.