The Dance of the Elves

Because I have been hurt, and bruised, by love 
I am a cautious wanderer on love's properties, 
Picking at fallen limbs quietly with a stick,
Fearful of the shadows which fold beneath sudden up-raised stones, 
Unable to defend myself from a sudden many-footed brute.

Childish, and like a child, excitable,
Quick to flight when alerted by a jay-call or the snapping of a crisp twig on an otherwise silent floor.

Please! Thou who art landholder of these folds, 
I am wounded and without guard.
Be not unduly alarmed at my clumsy tresspass into your curious garden. 
The grasslands are ungathered.
The pinestraw unexplored by my shoes.
There seems room enough here for all that is uncultivated,
And in these streams play crayfish and newts.

When the dawn fog makes the closest aspect indistinct, turning all thoughts hazy,
We listen carefully for the Dance of the Elves,
Trying to pick out some repeating rhythm,
The hum-hum of a rondo,
The slight raising-up of the willows wind-whisper 
In the undefined bog.
Listen, 
Listen

But now it is gone

And over there, where many days have seen the explosion of flowerbanks, 
And, above them, the breathing of bee-wings, kissing here this daisy, and then here, this solitary violet.

0! Of these grounds let us stoop and pause, 
Forgetting for one moment our purpose and destination, 
Following the afternoon's sleepy pull until we are sleeping, sleeping, under blue skies.

In all these sounds are crickets, the whistle of an owl, and toads. 
It is night and by the moon's light I shall go,
Leaving my stick,
And carrying a solitary violet.