My love dwelt in a northern land

My love dwelt in a northern land

A dim tower in a forest green
Was his, and far away the sand,
And gray wash of the waves were seen,
The woven forest boughs between.

And through the northern summer night
The sunset slowly died away,
And herds of strange deer, silver white,
Came gleaming through the forest gray,
And fled like ghosts before the day.

And oft, that month, we watch’d the moon
Wax great and white o’er wood and lawn,
And wane, with waning of the June,
Till, like a brand for battle drawn,
She fell, and flamed in a wild dawn.

I know not if the forest green
Still girdles round that castle gray,
I know not if, the boughs between,
The white deer vanish ere the day.
The grass above my love is green,
His heart is colder than the clay.

-Andrew Lang