That is she across the way,

Dressed as for a holiday,

Wandering aimlessly along

In oblivion of the throng,

With her lay of old regret;

That is crazy Margaret.

And her tale floats up and down

This enchanted Norman town,

Told among the wharves and ships,

On the children’s babbling lips,

Over gossips’ window-sills,

Very sad and very brief,

Graven on a cypress leaf,

Is the record of her days.

When the aloes were ablaze

Long ago, in summertide,

He maid Margaret cherished, died.

Hush! there is the holier part:

He knew nothing of her heart.

Tears thrilled in her lustrous eye

But to see him passing by,

And she turned from many a claim

Dreaming on that dearest name.

Solely on his thoughts intent

The rapt student came and went,

All the gladness in his looks

Sprung from visions and from books,

Grave with all, and kind to her,

So she loved him to the last,

Keeping her soul’s secret fast,

Suffering much and speaking naught

Of the woe her loving wrought;

Till the second summertide,

The young stranger drooped and died.

At the grave, before them all,

In the market, in the hall,

Down the forest-paths alone,

Ever since, in undertone

She goes singing soft and slow:

“When I meet him, he shall know.”

Therefore is she eager yet,

Poor, unhappy Margaret,

Holding still, in faith and truth,

The lost idyl of her youth,

Seeking fondly and thro’ tears,

Should he haunt our Norman coast,

Should he come, the gentle ghost;

Should she tell him of her pain,

Of her passion hushed and vain,—

Would he grieve? or would he care?

What a tragic chance is there!