NYMPH AND FAUN

Have you not seen a nymph in June
Go dancing through the misty woods,
Her mad young beauty hid beneath
A tattered gown of opening buds?

She flitted through the alder swamp,

And loitered by the willow stream,
Then started down the wood-road dim,
With bare young throat and eyes a-dream.

Her playmate is a shy young faun
Who follows her through dappled shade,

Craving a blossom from her hand,
His wandering by wonder stayed.

The soft winds fan their hearts to flame,
Like violets that nod and swoon,
They spread the fragrance of the Spring

Across the ardor of the noon.

The singing of the twilight brook
Is music for their pastorale,
Echoing through the aisles of dusk,
Where mysteries of Eden fall.

They catch the sorcery of light
That trembles from the evening star;
And fearlessly they tread a world
Where beauty and enchantment are.

When the great round and yellow moon

Comes flooding all the marshes wide,
She will have crossed the scented dune
To dance upon the silver tide.

And when I hear along the coast
The wind that pipes through larch and fir,