"
Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds--
His path was rugged and sore,
Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,
Through many a fen, where the serpent feeds,
And man never trod before.
And, when on the earth he sunk to sleep
If slumber his eyelids knew,
He lay, where the deadly vine doth weep
Its venomous tear and nightly steep
The flesh with blistering dew!
And near him the she-wolf stirred the brake,
And the copper-snake breathed in his ear,
Till he starting cried, from his dream awake,
"Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake,
"And the white canoe of my dear?"
He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright
Quick over its surface played--
"Welcome," he said, "my dear one's light!"
And the dim shore echoed, for many a night,
The name of the death-cold maid.
Till he hollowed a boat of the birchen bark,
Which carried him off from shore;
Far, far he followed the meteor spark,
The wind was high and the clouds were dark,
And the boat returned no more.
But oft, from the Indian hunter's camp
This lover and maid so true
Are seen at the hour of midnight damp
To cross the Lake by a fire-fly lamp,
And paddle their white canoe!
[1] The Great Dismal Swamp is ten or twelve miles distant from
Norfolk, and the Lake in the middle of it (about seven miles long) is
called Drummond's Pond.
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