But at sunrise the King awoke, with a sudden fear in his heart, and lo! where his Queen had lain was only a white water-lily.
And at that moment, in the depths of the forest, a beggar-maid was braiding her hair, with a pool of water-lilies for her mirror.
[THE WIFE FROM FAIRY-LAND]
er talk was of all woodland things,
Of little lives that pass
Away in one green afternoon,
Deep in the haunted grass.
For she had come from fairy-land,
The morning of a day
When the world that still was April
Was turning into May.
Green leaves and silence and two eyes—
'Twas so she seemed to me;
A silver shadow of the woods,—
Whisper and mystery.
I looked into her woodland eyes,
And all my heart was hers;
And then I led her by the hand
Home up my marble stairs.