O silent wood, I enter thee

With a heart so full of misery;

For all the voices from the trees,

And the ferns that cling about my knees.

In thy darkest shadow let me sit,

When the grey owls about thee flit;

There will I ask of thee a boon,

That I may not faint or die or swoon.

Gazing through the gloom like one

Whose life and hopes are also done,

Frozen like a thing of stone;

I sit in thy shadow - but not alone.

Can God bring back the day when we two stood

Beneath the clinging trees in that dark wood?