In the Heart of the Woods

I

The Heart of the woods, I hear it, beating, beating afar,
In the glamour and gloom of the night, in the light of the rosy star,
In the cold sweet voice of the bird, in the throb of the flower-soft
sea!...
For the Heart of the woods is the Heart of the world and the
Heart of Eternity,
Ay, and the burning passionate Heart of the heart in you and me.

Love of my heart, love of the world, linking the golden moon
With the flowery moths that flutter thro' the scented leaves of June,
And the mind of man with beauty, and youth with the dreaming night
Of stars and flowers and waters and breasts of glimmering white,
And streaming hair of fragrant dusk and flying limbs of lovely light;

Heart of Eternity,
Ay, and the burning passionate Heart of the heart in you and me.

II

O, Death will never find us in the heart of the wood,
The song is in my blood, night and day:
We will pluck a scented petal from the Rose upon the Rood
Where Love lies bleeding on the way.
We will listen to the linnet and watch the waters leap,
When the clouds go dreaming by,
And under the wild roses and the stars we will sleep,
And wander on together, you and I.

We shall understand the mystery that none has understood,
We shall know why the leafy gloom is green.
O, Death will never find us in the heart of the wood
When we see what the stars have seen!
We have heard the hidden song of the soft dews falling
At the end of the last dark s