The Old Road to Paradise/The Gray Magician

by Margaret Widdemer

THE SINGING WOOD

THE GRAY MAGICIAN

I was living very merrily on Middle Earth
 As merry as a maid may be
Till the Gray Magician came down along the road
 And flung his cobweb cloak on me:

His cobweb cloak of gray brushed my eyes and my ears
 And all the curtained air was thinned,
And I came to the sight of the quiet Other People
 Who live in the water and the wind:

And I cannot go abroad to gather up the faggots,
 Singing to the honest air
Because of the fingers of the brown wood-women
 Catching at my blowing hair:

And I cannot sit at home and be quiet at my spinning,
 Singing to the thread I spin,
Because of the crying of the green sea-women
 Beneath my sill to be let in:

And I wish the Gray Magician had been swung to an oak
 Or drowned in the deep green sea
Before he brushed my face with his cobweb cloak
 And stole the Middle Earth from me!