IN A BERNESE VALLEY
by Alexander Lamont
I met her by this mountain stream
At twilight's fall long years gone by,
While, rosy with day's afterbeam,
Yon snow-peaks glowed against the sky;
And she was but a simple maid
Who fed her goats among the hills,
And sang her songs within the glade,
And caught the music of the rills;
And drank the fragrance of the flowers
That bloomed within love-haunted dells;
And wandered home in gloaming hours,
Amid the sound of tinkling bells.
And now I'm in this vale again,
And once more hear the tinkling sound;
But yet 'tis not the same as when
That maiden 'mid her flock I found.
And still the rosy light of morn
Steals soft o'er mount and stream and tree;
And yet I hear the Alpine horn,
But the old charm is lost to me;
For I would see that angel face,
And hear again the simple tale
Which to that twilight lent the grace
That changed this to Arcadian vale.
It cannot be: my dream is o'er;
No more among the hills she'll roam;
No more she'll sing the songs of yore;
Or call the weary cattle home;
For she is in her bed of rest,
Encompassed all with gentians blue,
With Edelweiss upon her breast,
And by her head wild thyme and rue.
Sweet Angelus, from yon church-tower,
That floatest now so soft and clear,
Ring back again that golden hour
When I still sat beside her here!
- 1892 -
