The Dryad And The Woodsman Poem by Patti Masterman

There was the shyest dryad
Lived in the forest wild;
A spider sewed her clothing,
A wolf thought her, its child.

A hawk was her hunter,
An owl was her guard:
She slept inside a Yew tree
Whenever she grew tired.

A nymph was her neighbor,
A naiad bathed her clean,
As she grew up strong and healthy,
Hid in the forest green.

She prayed to the Sun-god
To bring to her a love,
And he sent her a Woodsman,
Her heart just to move.

But he chopped down her tree
To make her his bride,
And the tree kept her life-
While she died, half-inside.

The Woodsman he wept tears
To drown a forest-glen;
And the whole woods went under,
When the sky joined in.

The heaven's convened a meeting,
They must save the land;
And granted him a promise,
And the dryad a new plan.

So she became a woman;
Sometimes hard, sometimes soft:
Sometimes hard, the outside-
Inside, of softer cloth.

She loved her a Woodsman
More than her life,
And wearing all green,
She soon became his wife.

They had many children,
Who ran mostly wild-
For they were half of Woodsman
And half a dryad-child

And there was a sign-
If you looked deep in their eyes-
A wildness that was in there
You knew would never die.