The Fairy In the Glen
She comes to me when e’er she will,
When starlight sprinkles my windowsill.
When the dew finds rest upon the grass
She taps upon my window glass.
I go outside to be with her,
To share a moment soft and pure,
But she soon glides away down a wooded lane
And I who follow think I follow in vain.
We amble through the night time woods,
Past curled up ferns and dark monk’s hoods,
Past spiders in their silken weavings,
Long past when night surpasses evening.
I follow her deep into the glen
To the reedy edge of a foggy fen
Where cattails sway in a subtle breeze
And glowworms float in airy ease.
She pauses by a drowsy creek
And turns to me as if to speak,
But saying nothing moves farther ahead
And alights on a nearby milkweed bed.
She bids me listen to a joyful tune
The crickets play beneath a full white moon,
The notes flutter, then fall, gentle and sweet
In dappled moonlight at my feet.
We listen in silent similitude
Afraid to disturb the delicate mood,
Yet soon she starts to converse with me
And I am richer for her company.
We talk about many wonderful things –
About robin’s eggs and butterfly wings.
About caterpillars, elves and gnomes
And where she claims to make her home.
We talk about love and the joy it will bring
And how it can make a lonely heart sing.
I then smile at her but she turns away
And I, left speechless, have nothing to say.
And so we share the passing night
And greet the dawn’s creeping light,
But before the night succumbs to day
She once more starts to glide away.
She lingers near the waking brook
Then disappears in a rocky nook.
Looking in I can see her no more –
She has returned to where she was before.
Morning has come too soon it would seem
And she has left me alone to ponder my dream.
A dream? Perhaps, but real I know
For she had deigned to make it so.
|