Explore "The Wood Witch" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ There is a woodland witch who lies / With bloom-bright limbs and beam-bright eyes, / Among the water-flags, that rank / The slow brook's heron-haunted bank: / The dragon-flies, in brass and blue, / Are signs she works her sorcery through; / Weird, wizard characters she weaves / Her spells by under forest leaves, -- / These wait her word, like imps, upon / The gray flag-pods; their wings, of lawn / And gauze; their bodies gleamy green. / While o'er the wet sand, -- left between / The running water and the still, -- / In pansy hues and daffodil, / The fancies that she meditates / Take on most sumptuous shapes, with traits / Like butterflies. 'Tis she you hear, / Whose sleepy rune, hummed in the ear / Of silence, bees and beetles purr, / And the dry-droning locusts whirr; / Till, where the wood is very lone, / Vague monotone meets monotone, / And slumber is begot and born, / A faery child, beneath the thorn.
/ There is no mortal who may scorn / The witchery she spreads around / Her dim demesne, wherein is bound / The beauty of abandoned time, / As some sweet thought 'twixt rhyme and rhyme. / And by her spell you shall behold / The blue turn gray, the gray turn gold / Of hollow heaven; and the brown / Of twilight vistas twinkled down / With fire-flies; and, in the gloom, / Feel the cool vowels of perfume / Slow-syllabled of weed and bloom. / But, in the night, at languid rest, -- / When like a spirit's naked breast / The moon slips from a silver mist, -- / With star-bound brow, and star-wreathed wrist, / If you should see her rise and wave / You welcome, -- ah! what thing shall save / You then? forevermore her slave!