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| ONE day when by a path I stood | |
| That strayed its way out of a wood, | |
| To hear the woodbirds’ early song | |
| Before I drove my feet along, | |
| There came from out the trees’ soft shade | 5 |
| A most delightful, buoyant maid | |
| Who seemed no more of me afraid | |
| Than of the birds whose joyous singing | |
| Set her splendid legs to springing | |
| Till my heart went singing, winging, | 10 |
| And my body woke and swayed. | |
| |
| And then when near to me she drew, | |
| She smiled as most wood-maidens do, | |
| And her sweet voice rang out with laughter | |
| And all the trees went echoing after. | 15 |
| She raised bare arms above her head, | |
| And beckoned me, and then she fled, | |
| More blithesome than the chickadees, | |
| Down a path of arching trees, | |
| Quick of foot as any breeze, | 20 |
| And I followed where she led. | |
| |
| And when we came to a wide brook, | |
| One mighty, flying leap she took; | |
| And then, it seemed, she almost died | |
| Of laughter, while I grimly tried | 25 |
| That cursed running stream to cross | |
| On little boulders green with moss. | |
| And when I tumbled, both feet slipping, | |
| In the stream and came up dripping, | |
| Up and down she ran, a-tripping, | 30 |
| Seeking flowers at me to toss. | |
| |
| Oh, how a girl loose-frocked can kick, | |
| When kicking isn’t just a trick, | |
| But effervescence of pure joy | |
| That bubbles up as in a boy. | 35 |
| She stretched her arms to me and called | |
| When out upon a stone I’d crawled, | |
| And fingers busy, kisses throwing, | |
| All her face alive and glowing, | |
| Danced until, my poor wits going, | 40 |
| Off again I slipped, enthralled. | |
| |
| At last when on the bank I stood | |
| She ran again into the wood, | |
| And now and then a joyous cry | |
| Rang through the trees to guide me by. | 45 |
| And yet, however hard I tried, | |
| It was n’t till her quick eyes spied | |
| A mother squirrel in her nest, | |
| Baby squirrels at her breast, | |
| That she stopped a time to rest, | 50 |
| Letting me creep up beside. | |
| Soft-eyed she watched, with hand held out | |
| To warn me that I must n’t shout, | |
| Or crackle dead limbs with my feet. | |
| And then I heard the wood’s heart beat, | 55 |
| And suddenly the mood was stilled | |
| That in a blithesome hour had willed | |
| For me to caper to the skilled | |
| Abandon of her girlish graces, | |
| Running joyous, pagan races | 60 |
| Through the arching leaf-hung places | |
| Till her cup of fun was filled. | |
| |
| And silently she slipped away | |
| Into the east where each new day | |
| The sun comes up across the sky | 65 |
| While living things are born and die; | |
| And, trailing her with strident cry, | |
| I almost reached her side again, | |
| And saw her eyes were filled with pain: | |
| For all the trees took up my calling, | 70 |
| Echoed it like giant’s brawling, | |
| While she ran through sunbeams falling | |
| And was gone like summer rain. | |
| |
| If you had ever watched for long | |
| A girl with body lithe and strong | 75 |
| Go dancing to a chewink’s song, | |
| And then at last, just when you thought | |
| You had her radiant body caught, | |
| Away from you she’d swiftly flown,— | |
| You too would call in plaintive tone, | 80 |
| And run about like something blind, | |
| Begging her to be more kind, | |
| Crying like the winter wind | |
| Through a lonesome forest blown. | |
| |
| Out of the woods in headlong race | 85 |
| I ran, and tripped, and fell through space, | |
| Down by the crossroads near a spring | |
| Where all the peewits come to sing: | |
| And then the next clear thing I knew | |
| Across my face a soft wind blew, | 90 |
| And at my side a girl was kneeling. | |
| All the world went reeling, wheeling, | |
| And her lips to mine came stealing | |
| Softer than the morning dew. | |
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