Ballad + 

The lady rode ’neath the strange sky’s pall + 

Through the leafy woods funereal, + 

And all the length of her moonlit way + 

Was wanly white as the light of day; + 

Solemnly rob’d she rode along, + 

Unmindful of their droning throng + 

That throng’d her shadowy path, alas, + 

As though to see her funeral pass; + 

So through the mournful forest slow + 

Her palfrey’s silken feet did go, + 

Bearing her solemnly like a god + 

Over the shadow-haunted sod; + 

She laught to see the dead desire + 

That even now her life should tire, + 

She laught to think that to the earth + 

They call’d her that was full of mirth, + 

And though before her horse’s head + 

Throng’d the wan legions of the dead + 

Wanly attempting to stop her way, + 

She halted not for their legions gray, + 

But rode through the midnight’s mystic noon + 

Under the far gaze of the moon. + 

Then out from the dying woods at last + 

Into the moonlit plain she passt; + 

The misty stars were almost dead + 

Sunk in the heavens overhead, + 

While low down in the solemn skies + 

The white moon wan’d as one that dies. + 

Solemnly through the misty air + 

She rode with gold gems in her hair; + 

Bright were her holy eyes divine, + 

And red her lips as the red red wine. + 

At last in the unceasing night + 

Down from her palfrey she doth alight + 

By the strange murmuring of the sea; + 

She climbs the tall stair fearlessly, + 

And cometh at last to her chamber high + 

Beneath the wide face of the sky. + 

At last her journey being done, + 

She hath her golden stays undone, + 

And being a little wearied, + 

Hath laid her naked on her bed, + 

Thinking to slumber like the dead. + 