FROM THE HILLS OF DREAM

THE LONELY HUNTER

GREEN branches, green branches, I see you beckon;
I follow !
Sweet is the place you guard, there in the rowan-
tree hollow.
There he lies in the darkness, under the frail white
flowers,
Heedless at last, in the silence, of these sweet mid-
summer hours.

But sweeter, it may be, the moss whereon he is
sleeping now,
And sweeter the fragrant flowers that may crown his
moon-white brow:
And sweeter the shady place deep in an Eden hollow
Wherein he dreams I am with him—and, dreaming,
whispers, “Follow!”

Green wind from the green-gold branches,what is
the song you bring?
What are all songs for me, now, who no more care
to sing?
Deep in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still,
But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a
lonely hill.

Green is that hill and lonely, set far in a shadowy
place;
White is the hunter’s quarry, a lost-loved human face:
O hunting heart, shall you find it, with arrow of fail-
ing breath,
Led o’er a green hill lonely by the shadowy hound of
Death?

Green branches, green branches, you sing of
a sorrow olden,
But now it is midsummer weather, earth-
young, sunripe, golden:
Here I stand and I wait, here in the rowan-
tree hollow,
But never a green leaf whispers, “Follow, oh,
Follow, Follow!”

O never a green leaf whispers, where the
green-gold branches swing:
O never a song I hear now, where one was
wont to sing
Here in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to
me still,
But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on
a lonely hill.

—————
William Sharp
pseudonym was Fiona MacLeod