51. Dryads. Sassoon, Siegfried. 1918. The Old Huntsman and Other Poems

Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967). The Old Huntsman and Other Poems. 1918.

51. Dryads

WHEN meadows are grey with the morn
In the dusk of the woods it is night:
The oak and the birch and the pine
War with the glimmer of light.

Dryads brown as the leaf	5
Move in the gloom of the glade;
When meadows are grey with the morn
Dim night in the wood has delayed.

The cocks that crow to the land
Are faint and hollow and shrill:	10
Dryads brown as the leaf
Whisper, and hide, and are still.