Down the dim wood, and in the dreaming ways,
High on the mountain mead and heathy hill,
Dwelleth the holy thorn beloved of fays,
Fit shelter for their frail eternal days.
And all his aspect is so wondrous still
That he might be a threaded tapestry
Wove part by ladies,’ part by fairies’ skill
To music of a slow and marish rill.
In his small blossoms greatest beauties be;
Five moonlight leaves, and tinct anon with red,
Likest in hue to syrens of the sea,
Whose limbs are rose, and polished ivory.
Perfumed is he, as fits a fairy’s bed,
And honeyed for a fairy’s sustenance.
All night he watches fays: when night is dead
Holy he keeps the ground whence they have fled.
Tend the tall thorn, and so avoid mischance,
High hedges and close bowers make ye of him,
That spirits may thy ghostly good enhance,
And fairy fend from thee the charging lance.
Within thy chapel walls, with incense dim,
Suffer his leaf and flowery stem to blow,
Upon the altar, and the carved font’s rim,
So that wild fays may hear thy living hymn.
And when across the greenwood thou dost go
And seest his ruby fruit, bethink thee well,
“Even a spirit hath his proper woe,
Which I by these his heartës drops do know.”
What is that woe is proof to woven spell?
What grief is never cured of singing lays?
Not to the mortal ear may spirits tell
That grief, which ringeth them eternal knell,
And makes of their wild eyes perpetual pain,
Which dieth not, as ours, and lives again,
But ever sighs upon the summer breeze,
And groaneth in the trees:
Still though thou be, verily thou art forlorn,
Beloved thorn!
1915.