A Ballad

The Lake of the Dismal Swamp

• “They made her a grave, too cold and damp
• For a soul so warm and true;
• And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,
• Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp,
• She paddles her white canoe.
• “And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see,
• And her paddle I soon shall hear;
• Long and loving our life shall be,
• And I'll hide the maid in a cypress tree,
• When the footstep of death is near."
• 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 stirr'd the brake,
• And the copper-snake breath'd 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 play'd—
• “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 hollow'd a boat of the birchen bark,
• Which carried him off from shore;
• Far, far he follow'd the meteor spark,
• The wind was high and the clouds were dark,
• And the boat return'd 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!