La Belle Dame Avec Merci

An elfin lady in the woods, with verdant eyes and scarlet hair,
bade me buy her some cheap goods – bread and herbs, all meagre fare.
In return, promised the elf – she would help me find my self.

I bought her those and more besides, from our own humble village fair;
I rode to where her kind resides, and saw her there astride her mare.
She glimpsed me too and off we rode, through winding paths of thyme and woad.

At dusk came we to gurgling linn, in a heaven-scented gladdened glade;
Her shoulders shone – so pale, so thin – as she let fall her dress of plaid.
She grasped my hand and made to wade through the wet veil of the cascade.

What I found therein I can't explain – I like to think of sacred Flame.
Her hand, her herbs – they healed my pain; through her sweet salve, salvation came;
within that cave I felt and saw: long-frozen tears, now melt and thaw.