“My dear,” said the old man, “I have a desire to see the great Pine Tree before I die, and to listen once more to the song of the wind in its branches.”
“Come, then,” she said, and rose and took him by the hand.
Old and faint and worn, with feeble, tottering steps, and hand in hand they came.
“How faint I grow,” said the old man. “Ah, I am afraid! How dark it is! Hold you my hand....”
“I have it fast in mine. There, lie down, lie down, dear love; be still and listen to the wind in the Pine Tree.”
He lay on the soft brown bed beneath the Pine Tree’s boughs; and the wind sang.
She who was his love and his wife bent over him and sheltered him. And he suffered the great change.
Then he opened his eyes and looked at her. She was tall and straight and slender, in face and form most lovely, and each of them was young as the gods are young. He put out his hand and touched her. “Your long black hair ...” he said.
Once more she bade him, “Come.” Lightly they left the ground. To the sound of the wind’s music they swayed, they floated, they rose into the air. Higher they rose and higher. The branches of the Pine Tree received them, and they were no more seen.
Still, in the sweet nights of summer, the Children of the Woods come hand in hand to the Pine Tree by moonlight, slipping their slim dark feet upon the moss, and tossing back their long green hair.