Romance

MY Love dwelt in a Northern land.  
 A gray tower in a forest green  
Was hers, and far on either hand  
 The long wash of the waves was seen,  
And leagues on leagues of yellow sand,
 The woven forest boughs between!  
 
And through the silver Northern night  
 The sunset slowly died away,  
And herds of strange deer, lily-white,  
 Stole forth among the branches gray;
About the coming of the light,  
 They fled like ghosts before the day!  
 
I know not if the forest green  
 Still girdles round that castle gray;  
I know not if the boughs between
 The white deer vanish ere the day;  
Above my Love the grass is green,  
 My heart is colder than the clay!