Poems (Young)/The Wood Queen
THE WOOD-QUEEN.
The music of the May-time fills the hollows
And dim recesses of the forest world;
The magic music that all Nature follows
With laughter and with banners green unfurled.
Softly it steals through spaces dreamy-hearted
Where scarce the glancing squirrels dare to play
And falls at last ahush, where oak-boughs parted
Reveal the Queen who holds the woods in sway.
Moon-pale she is, like light in darkness hiding,
And shine and shade have woven her mantle fair;
Peace in each fold of its nine folds abiding
And in the shadowy beauty of her hair;
And in her eyes, beyond a mortal's knowing,
Deep peace like that of lonely mountain-lakes
When in the heavens one pale star is showing
And in the east the dawn-light slowly breaks;
So still she is, 'twould seem as though she listened
To voices in a world far, far away:
A world song-built ere the first rainbow glistened
Or earth awoke to music of the May.
And dim recesses of the forest world;
The magic music that all Nature follows
With laughter and with banners green unfurled.
Softly it steals through spaces dreamy-hearted
Where scarce the glancing squirrels dare to play
And falls at last ahush, where oak-boughs parted
Reveal the Queen who holds the woods in sway.
Moon-pale she is, like light in darkness hiding,
And shine and shade have woven her mantle fair;
Peace in each fold of its nine folds abiding
And in the shadowy beauty of her hair;
And in her eyes, beyond a mortal's knowing,
Deep peace like that of lonely mountain-lakes
When in the heavens one pale star is showing
And in the east the dawn-light slowly breaks;
So still she is, 'twould seem as though she listened
To voices in a world far, far away:
A world song-built ere the first rainbow glistened
Or earth awoke to music of the May.