Ballads (Masefield, 1903)/Midsummer Night

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Midsummer Night

"They tell a tale in the taverns of a white lady riding in the wood each Beltane. They call her Queen Elizabeth, though it is but a changing of the name. It is the lady Dian gone a-masquerading."—Samuel Trairon's MS.

The perfect disc of the sacred moonThrough still blue heaven serenely swims,And the lone bird's liquid music brimsThe peace of the night with a perfect tune.
This is that holiest night o' the yearWhen (the mowers say) may be heard and seenThe ghostly court of the English queen,Who rides to harry and hunt the deer.
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And the woodland creatures cower awake,A strange unrest is on harts and does,For the maiden Dian a-hunting goes,And the trembling deer are a-foot in the brake.
They start at a shaken leaf: the soundOf a dry twig snapped by a squirrel's footIs a nameless dread: and to them the hootOf a mousing owl is the cry of a hound.
Oh soon the forest will ring with cries,The dim green coverts will flash: the grassWill glow as the radiant hunters passAfter the quarry with burning eyes.
The hurrying feet will range unstayedOf questing goddess and hunted fawn,Till the east is grey with the sacred dawn,And the red cock wakens the milking maid.
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