The Dryad's Lament

by oosh@gmx.net


Born of the forest, made for wilderness,
Aeolus exiles me to garden's greenness:
Amid the human kind to thrust my branches.

In nurtured soil, my roots grow soft,
Slender my limbs, shallow my bark,
And as I must, I grow toward the light.

And then, one ever-lovely spring,
She comes, dancing, singing her joy
Round and round, on the earth beneath.

My scanty vernal dress bares me to the sun,
The sun of young love, the star of green hope,
Overreaching destiny, henceforth my only sun.

Proud in my finery, all that summer long
Her sweet melodious joy I resonate,
Embrace with every bough her beauty's warmth.

But then, in autumn tears she embraces me,
Pierces my harsh trunk with tender breast,
Poisons my roots with tears that I must drink.

Poisoned herself, I never see her more:
Year after year, I vainly search the air;
But at last, denial makes growth drear.

And now I fear the siren call of spring,
Coquettish leaves forced to seduce the sun,
Travesty of her long-abandoned dance.

And now I fear the splendour of summer,
Fated to burgeon in the echo of lost laughter,
In the silence of her song, all warmth is chill.

And now I fear the agony of autumn,
As in a slow rapture of regret
I weep my leaves upon her dance floor.

I do not fear the slow white death of winter,
As feeling stills, and into the cold, unfeeling sky
I see my fingers reaching for her soul.

I do not fear the axe:
From him, swift deliverance,
Hope consumed in a short glory of fire.

I fear the garden, green in loveliness,
Wherein I learned to love, and love's distress:
My Eden is the forest wilderness.
