In The Beech Woods

Amber and emerald, cairngorm and chrysoprase, Stream through the autumn woods, scatter the beech-wood ways: Ways where the wahoo-bush brightens with scarlet; And where the aster-stalk lifts its last starlet.

Ways where the brier burns; poplars drop, one by one, Leaves that seem beaten gold, each like a splash of sun: Round which the beeches rise, tree upon golden tree, That, with each wind that blows, sound like a summer sea.

Ways where the papaw leans, great-leaved and beryl-green, Like some grand forester one in Romance hath seen; And like some Indian queen, sung of in story, Flaming the gum-tree stands, crowned with its glory.

Ways where the bittersweet, cleaving its pods of gold, Brightens the brake with flame, torches the dingle old: And where the dogwood, too, crimsons with ruby seeds; Spicewood and buckbush bend ruddy with rosy beads.

These are the woods of gold; forests our childhood knew, Where the Enchanted dwelt, she with the eyes of blue; She of the raven locks, and of the lovely looks, She who oft gazed at us out of the Story Books.

And with that Prince again, striding his snow-white steed, To her deliverance through the gold wood we speed; On through the wood of flame to the Dark Tower, Where like a light she gleams high in her bower.