You are free of the woodland meadows,
Of swamp and thicket and ride;
All day in the slanting shadows
You lurk and loiter and hide,
Till the moonlight silvers the bracken
And the stars on the copses dance,
And the fires of the sunlight slacken
As the night comes up from France!
The night that by tower and steeple
Comes up like a witch in the sky,
Calling loud to the Little People
To mount while the moon is high;
Setting legions of light feet twinkling
Through the dewy marshland grass,
And the bells on the heath-flower tinkling
As the fairy horsemen pass!
In the light of the stars they gather
Between the mirk and the morn,
With kirtle and cap and feather
And hunting-knife and horn;
Then come from the deep glades swinging
Their ropes of the twisted dew,
Like gay little cowboys flinging
Their lariat loops on you!
You are free of the woodland meadows,
You are free of thicket and ride;
All day in the slanting shadows
You lurk and loiter and hide;
All day unbitted and idle
You wheel and whinny and prance.
But you bend to an elfin bridle
When the night comes up from France!
