Will they ever come to me, ever again,
The long, long dances,
On through the dark till the dim
stars wane?
Shall I feel the dew on my throat and the stream
Of wind in my hair?
Shall our white feet gleam
In the dim expanses?
O feet of the fawn to the greenwood fled,
Alone in the grass and
the loveliness;
Leap of the hunted, no more in dread,
Beyond the snares and the deadly press.
Yet a voice still in the distance sounds,
A voice and a fear and a haste of hounds,
O wildly labouring, fiercely fleet,
Onward yet by river and lien—
Is it joy or terror, ye storm-swift feet?
To the dear lone lands untroubled of men, Where no voice, sounds, and amid the, shadowy green
The little things of the woodland live unseen.