Her arms about him did she wind;
He felt her body dear and kind.
* * * * *
“O love,” she said, “now two are one,
And whither hence shall we be gone?”
“Shall we fare further than this wood,”
Quoth he, “I deem it dear and good?”
She shook her head, and laughed, and spake;
“Rise up! For thee, not me, I quake.
Had she been minded me to slay
Sure she had done it ere to-day.
But thou: this hour the crone shall know
That thou art come, her very foe.
No minute more on tidings wait,
Lest e’en this minute be too late.”
She led him from the sunlit green,
Going sweet-stately as a queen.
There in the dusky wood, and dim,
As forth they went, she spake to him: