So parted they—and so they strove apart
Each to repress the risings of the heart;
Each to rake out, ungerminant, ungrown,
The seed in fertile soil too richly sown.
Yet in her own despite, it seemed, the Maid,
Was stilt recalled to something done, or said,
By or about the Stranger; to her breast
Tidings of him, like wild birds to their nest
Would fly, it seemed as to their natural rest;
The slightest news that floated in the air
By some attraction seemed to settle there;
Nor ever seemed there lack of such, or dearth
Of Fancy's food; for desert wastes of Earth
Blush nectared fruits, and the blue void above
Rains mystic manna but to nourish Love!

Nor yet could Amohia, in that pain
Of stifled passion, though she strove, refrain
From stealing sometimes to a lonely spot
Where all before her lay the Lake serene;
And she could see the glimmer of the cot
Her heart divined was his; and there with mien
Expectant on the mountain-side unseen
In thick red-dusted fern would couch, until
From the dim base-line of the opposite hill
A white speck disengaged itself and grew
Into a sail; or sometimes—for to while
The time when sport was slack or weather bad.
With help from native hands, our sailor-lad
Had fitted up a light canoe,
page 155 With keel, mast, sails, and rudder, too,
And sculls in European style-
Sometimes a dark spot she descried
With flashing twinkle on each side
That neared and neared till clear in view
The light skiff, in a mode so new,
Its single occupant, though backward going
At once with two long paddles rowing,
Came skimming the blue calm, and still
With sharp keel seemed to slit the thin
Glazed surface of the shining Lake
That shrank apart in widening wake
As shrinks beneath the sacrificial knife
Some forest victim's opening skin
Discoated of its fur and warm
From the last pants of its wild woodland life:
There as she sat alone and long,
Like one who murmurs low some potent charm,
In fervid words her love would simmer into song: