WELL BELOVED

O well-beloved is the wood; It is a wonder to walk therein. Peopled of spirits is every rood. And evil spirits are they or good? Neither evil are they nor good, They know not any sin. Fitfully do thy footsteps fall On echoing path or mossy lawn; And if thine eyes behold, in all The hoary thickets is festival; The silent people hold festival, And thither are thou drawn. Go near softly and eat with them. Take your fill of fairies’ meat. Wear the wreathy diadem Of the blossoming hawthorn stem, Of the enchanted hawthorn stem That smelleth passing sweet. Better are all these misty eyne That smile not, and do never weep, Than those bright mortal eyes of thine That with all joys and woes must shine, That with full many tears must shine And then be closed in sleep: Better these slender limbs and pale Than all thy lovely white and red. Thrice ten years shall be thy tale Till thy fairness all must fail, Then two score; and thou must fail, And soon be vanishéd: Vanish’d behind the mantle of morn, Lightly lost as a gossamer That like a ghostly robe is borne When autumn seemeth most forlorn, In the ways of the woods forlorn A moment’s passenger: Profits me nought to look on thee, I will go to the other folk, Neither sadly nor merrily Dwelling beside the twisted tree; Quiet-hued as any winter tree, Slight as a spire of smoke; Heeding no heaven, no stately art, Silent they roam the leafy chace. They die not, nor do they depart. Fleet fly the sylvan hind and hart; Gentle as hind, and swift as hart, They dwell in their own place.