Misled Poem by Emma Alice Browne

Thro' moss, and bracken, and purple bloom,
With a glitter of gorses here and there,
Shoulder deep in the dewy bloom,
My love, I follow you everywhere!
By faint sweet signs my soul divines,
Dear heart, at dawning you came this way,
By the jangled bells of the columbines,
And the ruffled gold of the gorses gay.

By hill and hollow, by mead and lawn,
Thro' shine and shade of dingle and glade,
Fast and far as I hurry on
My eager seeking you still evade.
But, were you shod with the errant breeze,
Spirit of shadow and fire and dew,
O'er trackless deserts of lands and seas
Still would I follow and find out you.

Like a dazzle of sparks from a glowing brand,
'Mid the tender green of the feathery fern
And nodding sedge, by the light gale fanned,
The Indian pinks in the sunlight burn;
And the wide, cool cups of the corn flower brim
With the sapphire's splendor of heaven's own blue,
In sylvan hollows and dingles dim,
Still sweet with a hint of the morn-and you!

For here is the print of your slender foot,
And the rose that fell from your braided hair,
In the lush deep moss at the bilberry's root-
And the scent of lilacs is in the air!
Do lilacs bloom in the wild green wood?
Do roses drop from the bilberry bough?
Answer me, little Red Riding Hood!
You are hiding there in the bracken, now!

Come out of your covert, my Bonny Belle-
I see the glint of your eyes sweet blue-
Your yellow locks-ah, you know full well
Your scarlet mantle has told on you;
Come out this minute, you laughing minx!
-By all the dryads of wood and wold!
'Tis only a cluster of Indian pinks
And corn flowers, under the gorses' gold.