Envoi

  Princess, I’m yours; the rose-red rain
    Pours from my side—­but see!  I dart
  Within your guard—­poor pretty stain! 
    I fight you, darling, for your heart.

  Sorcery

  Face with the forest eyes,
    And the wayward wild-wood hair,
  How shall a man be wise,
    When a girl’s so fair;
  How, with her face once seen,
  Shall life be as it has been,
    This many a year?

  Beautiful fearful thing! 
    You undulant sorcery! 
  I dare not hear you sing,
    Dance not for me;
  The whiteness of your breast,
  Divinely manifest
    I must not see.

  Too late, thou luring child,
    Moon matches little moon;
  I must not be beguiled,
    With the honied tune: 
  Yet O to lay my head
  Twixt moon and moon! 
  ’Twas so my sad heart said,
    Only last June.

  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.

  May is back

  May is back, and You and I
    Are at the stream again—­
  The leaves are out,
  And all about
  The building birds begin
  To make a merry din: 
  May is back, and You and I
    Are at the dream again.

  May is back, and You and I
    Lie in the grass again,—­
  The butterfly
  Flits painted by,
  The bee brings sudden fear,
  Like people talking near;
  May is back, and You and I
    Are lad and lass again.

  May is back, and You and I
    Are heart to heart again,—­
  In God’s green house
  We make our vows
  Of summer love that stays
  Faithful through winter days;
  May is back, and You and I
    Shall never part again.