Unnatural Nature.

Where wept the willow by the river roughly flowing

A lost and frightened damsel laid her hands upon her heart,

While all her hurried breaths were to flight and fear most owing,

And her lovely worried looks were a terrifying art.

Up she raised her harrowed voice to the heavens main addressing,

'Save me, save me, holy person, save my honour, dearly

Have I kept its sacred worth.' In tears she failed suppressing.

Now the night was dark and cloudy, her eyes were blue and pearly,

And her figure was of liquid moving rippled round and bled;

And she was the sport of huntsmen who had stolen her away,

From her quaint and warm bedchamber to this wilderness of dread,

To a place of darkened augurs, where souls were led astray.

She saw them coming nearer from three gaps within the trees,

And she grasped the stolen dagger desperately beside her breast;

While she rose, to see her Master, and to pray upon her knees,

She cried out, 'Save me!' one last time, and so proceed the rest.