DIANE AU BOIS

Through the sere woods she walks alone,

With bow unstrung and empty quiver;

Her hounds are dead, her maidens gone,

She walks alone forever;

Watching the while with wistful eyes

Her crescent shining in the skies.

The flutes of Pan are silent now,

Hushed is the sound of Faunus’ singing;

Through winds that shake the withering bough

No dryad's voice is ringing.

Syrinx has left her river deep,

E'en old Silenus sound doth sleep.

The startled deer before her flee,

The nightingales with music meet her;

Yet never mortal eye shall see

Or mortal voices greet her.

Her shrines with weeds are overgrown,

Their fires are out; their worship done.

Yet sometimes, so‘ twas told to me,

The children playing in the meadows

May hear her song, that mournfully

Comes floating through the shadows,

And sometimes see, through boughs grown bare,

The moonlit brightness of her hair.

And, it may be, her weary feet,

White gleaming through those dusky spaces,

May, after many wanderings, meet

The dear, familiar places;

And find, beyond the sunset's gold,

Ghosts of the Gods she knew of old.