The Dryad

My dryad hath her hiding place
Among ten thousand trees.
    She flies to cover
    At step of a lover,
And where to find her lovely face
Only the woodland bees
    Ever discover,
Bringing her honey
From meadows sunny,
    Cowslip and clover.

Vainly on beech and oak I knock
Amid the silent boughs;
    Then hear her laughter,
    The moment after,
Making of me her laughing-stock
Within her hidden house.

The young moon with her wand of pearl
Taps on her hidden door,
    Bids her beauty flower
    In that woodland bower,
All white like a mortal girl,
With moonshine hallowed o'er.

Yet were there thrice ten thousand trees
To hide her face from me,
    Not all her fleeing
    Should 'scape my seeing,
Nor all her ambushed sorceries
Secure concealment be
    For her bright being.

Yea! should she by the laddered pine
Steal to the stars on high,
    Her fairy whiteness,
    Hidden in brightness,
Her hiding-place would so out-shine
The constellated sky,
She could not 'scape the eye
Of my pursuing,
Nor her fawn-foot lightness
Out-speed my wooing.

Richard Le Gallienne

Richard Le Gallienne was an English author and poet born on January 20, 1866. Known for his lyrical poetry, he was a key figure in the literary circles of the fin de siècle. He contributed to the literary magazine 'The Yellow Book' and was involved with the Rhymers' Club, an influential group of London-based poets. His works often explored themes of beauty, love, and nature. His influence extended to both sides of the Atlantic, and he spent the latter part of his life in the United States, where he continued to write until his death on September 15, 1947.

Richard Le Gallienne

Who Was It Swept Against My Door

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

An Inscription

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

Autumn Treasure

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

An Echo From Horace

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

English

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The Dryad.

I have seen her limpid eyes
Large with gradual laughter rise
Through wild-roses' nettles,
Like twin blossoms grow and stare,
Then a hating, envious air
Whisked them into petals.

I have seen her hardy cheek
Like a molten coral leak
Through the leafage shaded
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When I made more sure, again
To a red plum faded.

I have found her racy lips,
And her graceful finger-tips,
But a haw and berry;
Glimmers of her there and here,
Just, forsooth, enough to cheer
And to make me merry.

Often on the ferny rocks
Dazzling rimples of loose locks
At me she hath shaken,
And I've followed - 'twas in vain -
They had trickled into rain
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Once her full limbs flashed on me,<...

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Deep In The Forest

I.

Spring On The Hills

Ah, shall I follow, on the hills,
The Spring, as wild wings follow?
Where wild-plum trees make wan the hills,
Crabapple trees the hollow,
Haunts of the bee and swallow?
In redbud brakes and flowery
Acclivities of berry;
In dogwood dingles, showery
With white, where wrens make merry?
Or drifts of swarming cherry?
In valleys of wild strawberries,
And of the clumped May-apple;
Or cloudlike trees of haw-berries,
With which the south winds grapple,
That brook and byway dapple?
With eyes of far forgetfulness,
Like some wild wood-thing's daughter,
Whose feet are beelike fretfulness,
To see her run like water
Through boughs that slipped or caught her.
O Spring, to seek, yet find you not!
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Shadow

When leaf and flower are newly made,
And bird and butterfly and bee
Are at their summer posts again;
When all is ready, lo! 'tis she,
Suddenly there after soft rain -
The deep-lashed dryad of the shade.

Shadow! the fairest gift of June,
Gone like the rose the winter through,
Save in the ribbed anatomy
Of ebon line the moonlight drew,
Stark on the snow, of tower or tree,
Like letters of a dead man's rune.

Dew-breathing shade! all summer lies
In the cool hollow of thy breast,
Thou moth-winged creature darkly fair;
The very sun steals down to rest
Within thy swaying tendrilled hair,
And forest-flicker of thine eyes.

Made of all shapes that flit and sway,
And mass, and scatter in the breeze,
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Deep In The Forest

I.SPRING ON THE HILLS

Ah, shall I follow, on the hills,
The Spring, as wild wings follow?
Where wild-plum trees make wan the hills,
Crabapple trees the hollow,
Haunts of the bee and swallow?

In redbud brakes and flowery
Acclivities of berry;
In dogwood dingles, showery
With white, where wrens make merry?
Or drifts of swarming cherry?

In valleys of wild strawberries,
And of the clumped May-apple;
Or cloudlike trees of haw-berries,
With which the south winds grapple,
That brook and byway dapple?

With eyes of far forgetfulness, -
Like some wild wood-thing's daughter,
Whose feet are beelike fretfulness, -
To see her run like water
Through boughs that slipped or caught her.

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Lovers

They sit within a woodland place,
    Trellised with rustling light and shade;
So like a spirit is her face
    That he is half afraid
    To speak - lest she should fade.

Mysterious, beneath the boughs,
    Like two enchanted shapes, they are,
Whom Love hath builded them a house
    Of little leaf and star,
    And the brown evening jar.

So lovely and so strange a thing
    Each is to each to look upon,
They dare not hearken a bird sing,
    Or from the other one
    Take eyes - lest they be gone.

So still - the watching woodland peers
    And pecks about them, butterflies
Light on her hand - a flower; eve hears
    Two questions, two replies -
    O love that never dies!

Richard Le Gallienne

The Triad

Show me the noblest Youth of present time,
Whose trembling fancy would to love give birth;
Some God or Hero, from the Olympian clime
Returned, to seek a Consort upon earth;
Or, in no doubtful prospect, let me see
The brightest star of ages yet to be,
And I will mate and match him blissfully.
I will not fetch a Naiad from a flood
Pure as herself, (song lacks not mightier power)
Nor leaf-crowned Dryad from a pathless wood,
Nor Sea-nymph glistening from her coral bower;
Mere Mortals bodied forth in vision still,
Shall with Mount Ida's triple lustre fill
The chaster coverts of a British hill.
"Appear! obey my lyre's command!
Come, like the Graces, hand in hand!
For ye, though not by birth allied,
Are Sisters in the bond of love;
Nor shall the tongue of e...

William Wordsworth