THE DRYAD

My dryad hath her hiding place

Among ten thousand trees.

She flies to cover

At step of a lover,

And where to find her lovely face

Only the woodland bees

Ever discover,

Bringing her honey

From meadows sunny,

Cowslip and clover.

Vainly on beech and oak I knock

Amid the silent boughs;

Then hear her laughter,

The moment after,

Making of me her laughing-stock

Within her hidden house.

The young moon with her wand of pearl

Taps on her hidden door,

Bids her beauty flower

In that woodland bower,

All white like a mortal girl,

With moonshine hallowed o'er.

Yet were there thrice ten thousand trees

To hide her face from me,

Not all her fleeing

Should‘ scape my seeing,

Nor all her ambushed sorceries

Secure concealment be

For her bright being.

Yea! should she by the laddered pine

Steal to the stars on high,

Her fairy whiteness,

Hidden in brightness,

Her hiding-place would so out-shine

The constellated sky,

She could not‘ scape the eye

Of my pursuing,

Nor her fawn-foot lightness

Out-speed my wooing.