The Woodman’s Daughter

Under the thorn tree of Emond’s Hill, A miller’s daughter sat sitting still: She wove a crown of the long green grass, And black-drops glistened as they pass.

The owl screamed from the ruined tower, And she watched till the moon was high as a flower. With the yellow wheat in the wheat-sheaf, It bent down beneath the weight of the leaf.

But she sang a song in the hours of gloom, For the woodman’s daughter had lights of bloom. Her hair was as bright as the hunted star That glimmers by night from the bough of a spar.

To see her, the broken bough did bend, And the lonely wind inspired love to send. As the echoes awoke on the silent hill, The woodman’s daughter sang sweetly still.

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• John Everett Millais