She is standing at the gate,
Tall and sweet,
And although the hour be late
She will greet
Me, her lover,
Smiling over
Absent mind and tardy feet.
Rest, Ill say to her, and more rest,
As she wraps her love around me,
And Ill tell her of the forest,
Of the strange, fear-haunted forest
Where the fleshless beings found me.
For I trod a rock-strewn rude way
Thinking only of my lover,
When the moonlight on the woodway,
Made a weird-way of the woodway,
And a place where demons hover.
For the leaves that had been sleeping
On the sodden soil-bed lying,
Look a motion and gan creeping,
Like a thousand small feet creeping,
And there rose a distant sighing.
Why the trees did droop their tresses,
Weeping leaves for something under,
And what bode in dim recesses,
Feline-lurked in dim recesses,
Paled my cheeks and heart to ponder.
Had I feet I would have hurried,
But the moonlit forest chained me,
Soul and body grasped and worried,
With frost-fingers gripped and worried,
Till, half-stayed, my hurt heart pained me.
Rest, Ill say, my Love, and more rest;
Things unseen have life and motion
And they haunt the moonlit forest
Soul-affronting haunt the forest,
And men meet them on the ocean.
She will look so grave and kind,
Saying Rest
Rest is here for heart and mind
On this breast
Put aside all
Fancies idle,
I will shield youLove is best.
Mid-Forest Fear
written byRoderic Quinn
© Roderic Quinn