A Forest Idyl

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I

  Beneath an old beech-tree
  They sat together,
  Fair as a flower was she
  Of summer weather.
  They spoke of life and love,
  While, through the boughs above,
  The sunlight, like a dove,
  Dropped many a feather.


  II

  And there the violet,
  The bluet near it,
  Made blurs of azure wet--
  As if some spirit,
  Or woodland dream, had gone
  Sprinkling the earth with dawn,
  When only Fay and Faun
  Could see or hear it.


  III

  She with her young, sweet face
  And eyes gray-beaming,
  Made of that forest place
  A spot for dreaming:
  A spot for Oreads
  To smooth their nut-brown braids,
  For Dryads of the glades
  To dance in, gleaming.


  IV

  So dim the place, so blest.
  One had not wondered
  Had Dian's moonéd breast
  The deep leaves sundered,
  And there on them awhile
  The goddess deigned to smile.
  While down some forest aisle
  The far hunt thundered.


  V

  I deem that hour perchance
  Was but a mirror
  To show them Earth's romance
  And draw them nearer:
  A mirror where, meseems.
  All that this Earth-life dreams,
  All loveliness that gleams,
  Their souls saw clearer.


  VI

  Beneath an old beech-tree
  They dreamed of blisses;
  Fair as a flower was she
  That summer kisses:
  They spoke of dreams and days,
  Of love that goes and stays,
  Of all for which life prays,
  Ah me! and misses.

© Madison Julius Cawein