The Gray Magician Poem by Margaret Widdemer

I was living very merrily on Middle Earth
As merry as a maid may be
Till the Gray Magician came down along the road
And flung his cobweb cloak on me:
His cobweb cloak of gray brushed my eyes and my ears
And all the curtained air was thinned,
And I came to the sight of the quiet Other People
Who live in the water and the wind:
And I cannot go abroad to gather up the faggots,
Singing to the honest air
Because of the fingers of the brown wood-women
Catching at my blowing hair:
And I cannot sit at home and be quiet at my spinning,
Singing to the thread I spin,
Because of the crying of the green sea-women
Beneath my sill to be let in:
And I wish the Gray Magician had been swung to an oak
Or drowned in the deep green sea
Before he brushed my face with his cobweb cloak
And stole the Middle Earth from me