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.