In the moon's cold shadow, where the wild grass grows

Do not stray, child, from the lamp lit path

Though the wild ones whisper in the advent dark

Pay no heed to the stirring and rustling of leaves

The song of the deep forest or the call of the glade

For the wind carries with it a treacherous promise

And deception lurks in the gathering gloom

There, beneath rafters of branches and tendrils

Lies the portal from beyond which no mortal returns

No moonbeams spill over the floor of the bower

Where the limbs grow tangled in apses of green

And hedges form palings of bramble and thornbush

Around the great dais of the Eldergrove King

There sits the Sylvan Lord in his vesperal chamber

Upon a fossilwood throne more ancient than time

His vassals assemble in moss-bedecked companies

And dance at his feet to the tune of the trees

Sha-ra-lee, sha-ra-lai, calls the trembling timbrel

While the revelers twirl to the beat of the drums

But none gathered shall ever depart this dominion

For their liege binds them all to his service and whim

So stay, child, stay where the lamplight shines

Though the music beckons louder from the murmuring wood

Tread not the dark path to the saturnine portal

In the moon’s cold shadow, where the wild grass grows