Lifting itself above the smaller growths stands the young manhood of
the woods--a splendid oak past its thirtieth year, representing its
youth and its prime conjoined. In its trunk is the summer heat of the
all-day sun. Around its roots is velvet turf, and there are wild
violet beds. Its huge arms are stretched toward the ground as though
reaching for some object they would clasp; and on one of these arms as
its badge of divine authority, worn there as a knight might wear the
colors of his Sovereign, grows the mistletoe. There he stands--the
Forest Lover.
The woods wait, the shadows deepen, the hush is more intense, the
moon's rays begin to be golden, the song of the nightingale grows more
passionate, the beds of moss and violets wait.
Then the shrubbery is tremblingly parted at some place and upon the
scene a young girl enters--her hair hanging down--her limbs most
lightly clad--the flush of red hawthorn on the white hawthorn of her
skin--in her eyes love's great need and mystery. Step by step she
comes forward, her fingers trailing against whatsoever budding wayside
thing may stay her strength. She draws nearer to the oak, searching
amid its boughs for that emblem which she so dreads to find and yet
more dreads not to find: the emblem of a woman's fruitfulness which
the young oak--the Forest Lover--reaches down toward her.
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