The Encounter

There’s a wood-way winding high,Roofed far up with light-green flicker,Save one midmost star of sky.Underfoot ’tis all pale brownWith the dead leaves matted downOne on other, thick and thicker;Soft, but springing to the tread.There a youth late met a maidRunning lightly,--oh, so fleetly!“Whence art thou?” the herd-boy said.Either side her long hair swayed,Half a tress and half a braid,Coloured like the soft dead leaf.As she answered, laughing sweetly,On she ran, as flies the swallow;He could not choose but followThough it had been to his grief.

“I have come up from the valley,--From the valley!” Once he caught her,Swerving down a sidelong alley,For a moment, by the hand.“Tell me, tell me,” he besought her,“Sweetest, I would understandWhy so cold thy palm, that slipsFrom me like the shy cold minnow?The wood is warm, and smells of fern,And below the meadows burn.Hard to catch and hard to win, oh!Why are those brown finger tipsCrinkled as with lines of water?”

Laughing while she featly footed,With the herd-boy hasting after,Sprang she on a trunk uprooted,Clung she by a roping vine;Leaped behind a birch, and told,Still eluding, through its fine,Mocking, slender, leafy laughter,Why her finger tips were cold:

“I went down to tease the brook,With her fishes, there below;She comes dancing, thou must know,And the bushes arch above her;But the seeking sunbeams look,Dodging, through the wind-blown cover,Find and kiss her into stars.Silvery veins entwine and crookWhere a stone her tripping bars;There be smooth, clear sweeps, and swirlsBubbling up crisp drops like pearls.There I lie, along the rocksThick with greenest slippery moss,And I have in hand a stripOf gray, pliant, dappled bark;And I comb her liquid locksTill her tangling currents cross;And I have delight to harkTo the chiding of her lip,Taking on the talking stoneWith each turn another tone.Oh, to set her wavelets bickering!Oh, to hear her laughter simple,See her fret and flash and dimple!Ha, ha, ha!” The woodland rangWith the rippling through the flickering.At the birch the herd-boy sprang.

On a sudden something woundVine-like round his throbbing throat;On a sudden something smoteSharply on his longing lips,Stung him as the birch bough whips:Was it kiss or was it blow?Never after could he know;She was gone without a sound.

Never after could he seeIn the wood or in the mead,Or in any companyOf the rustic mortal maids,Her with acorn-coloured braids;Never came she to his need.Never more the lad was merry,Strayed apart, and learned to dream,Feeding on the tart wild berry;Murmuring words none understood,--Words with music of the wood,And with music of the stream.