Classic Poem

When windless rain falls in the forest, making
The green leaves move
Slightly, the drear lake's magic mirror breaking,
I stir and rise, remembering my love.
I see her grey eyes, threatening and fair,
I ride with her the stormy clouds above,
I sink in midnight flooding of her hair, —
The witch of Althemair.

I know it is a dream; yet wildly hoping
At some far sound,
I leave my poor hut, and on mountains groping
I seek her whom the age-long charm has bound
Within the hollow tree-trunk by her hair
About the tree-trunk wound and interwound,
Her dark hair where the rains are falling there, —
The witch of Althemair.

I keep on earth my travail for a token
When the rains fall,
That with an ecstasy no time has broken
I rode the height of heaven at her call.
While mountaineers draw round their pine-knots' flare
I seek the stormy forest and the pall
Of night by night that darkens with her hair, —
The witch of Althemair.