The Pine Lady by Richard Le Gallienne

THE PINE LADY

O HAVE you seen the Pine Lady,
Or heard her how she sings?
Have you heard her play
Your soul away
On a harp with moonbeam strings?
In a palace all of the night-black pine
She hides like a queen all day,
Till a moonbeam knocks
On her secret tree,
And she opens her door
With a silver key,
While the village clocks
Are striking bed
Nine times sleepily.


O come and hear the Pine Lady
Up in the haunted wood!
The stars are rising, the moths are flitting,
The owls are calling,
The dew is falling;

And, high in the boughs
Of her haunted house,
The moon and she are sitting.

Out on the moor the night-jar drones
Rough-throated love,
The beetle comes
With his sudden drums,
And many a silent unseen thing
Frightens your cheek with its ghostly wing;
While there above,
In a palace builded of needles and cones,
The pine is telling the moon her love,
Telling her love on the moonbeam strings —
O have you seen the Pine Lady,
Or heard her how she sings?


by Richard Le Gallienne