FONDLY lov’d a youth and youthful maiden,
And they wash’d them in the self-same water,
And they dried them with the self-same linen:
Full a year had pass’d, and no one knew it:
Yet another year—’twas all discover’d,
And the father heard it, and the mother;
But the mother check’d their growing fondness,
Banish’d love, and exiled them for ever.
To the stars he look’d, and bade them tell her:
“Die, sweet maiden! on the week’s last even;
Early will I die on Sabbath morning.”
As the stars foretold th’ event, it happen’d:
On the eve of Saturday the maiden
Died—and died the youth on Sunday morning:
And they were, fond pair, together buried;
And their hands were intertwined together:
In those hands they placed the greenest apples:
When, behold! ere many moons had shone there,
From the grave sprung up a verdant pine-tree,
And a fragrant crimson rose-tree follow’d:
Round the pine the rose-tree fondly twined it,
As around the straw the silk clings closely.