That his hair you smooth, that you kiss his brow
What boots it now? what boots it now?...

She has haled him under the trysting oak,
The huge old oak that the creepers cloak.

She has stood him, gaunt in his battered arms,
In its haunted hollow.--"Be safe from storms,"

She laughed as his cloven casque she placed
On his brow, and his riven shield she braced.

Then sat and talked to the forest flowers
Through the lonely term of the day's pale hours.

And stared and whispered and smiled and wept,
While nearer and nearer the evening crept.

And, lo, when the moon, like a great gold bloom
Above the sorrowful trees did loom,

She rose up sobbing, "O moon, come see
My bridegroom here in the old oak-tree!

"I have talked to the flowers all day, all day,
For never a word had he to say.

"He would not listen, he would not hear,
Though I wailed my longing into his ear.