The Old Road to Paradise/The Faun's Sweetheart

by Margaret Widdemer

THE FAUN'S SWEETHEART

We met by the Wood of Doom,
Day gone and the dusk come after . . .
And I thought you were one like the lads anear,
Only more glad and fair,
Till I heard you laugh in the gloom
And I knew a faun's wild laughter—
But oh, it was all too late to fear
The little horns in your hair!

Far back leaped the woodlights' glow,
And you fled—and I might not follow,
And I loosed the hold of your hurrying hand
At the piercing wood-flutes' call;
For my human feet fell slow,
Flagging at hill and hollow,
Till far rang back from the leaping band
The click of your light footfall.
······
The days pass long and still
Where I sit still at my spinning . . .
But I wish the sounds of the talking stream
Would hush, and I might not know
Over the forest-hill
The sounds of the night's beginning,
Nor see the flit of the hurrying gleam
Where the lightfoot woodfolk go!

For I cannot have hope in heaven
To quiet my heartache after,
Because you were only a faun o' the wood
With never a soul at all.
And never the hills of heaven
May echo a faun's wild laughter
Nor over the harpstrings' holy flood
Sound ringing your light footfall!