 | Forest Notes |  |
3
TO THE FOREST
O Forest, dim mysterious rustling Forest,
The shelter of uncounted generations;
Where Life and Death war ever, each triumphant;
The sun above, and underneath the twilight;
Wherein is wrought the alchemy of seasons,
The dream, the song, the cruelty of Nature:
The shelter of uncounted generations;
Where Life and Death war ever, each triumphant;
The sun above, and underneath the twilight;
Wherein is wrought the alchemy of seasons,
The dream, the song, the cruelty of Nature:
Where be the unremembered generations
That once were men, with pulses strong, triumphant,
But now are ghosts, conceived but in the twilight,
Who trod these woods, each for its few short seasons,
Singing its hymn to God or Gods of Nature,
And dropping like the leaves that strew the forest?
That once were men, with pulses strong, triumphant,
But now are ghosts, conceived but in the twilight,
Who trod these woods, each for its few short seasons,
Singing its hymn to God or Gods of Nature,
And dropping like the leaves that strew the forest?
4
Lo, here Art never came, to stand triumphant,
To tell us of dead nations lost in twilight,
And teach their ended story of a season;
But in its wild monotonous life of Nature,
Like Ocean the unchangeable, the forest
Outlives, forgets, and hides the generations.
To tell us of dead nations lost in twilight,
And teach their ended story of a season;
But in its wild monotonous life of Nature,
Like Ocean the unchangeable, the forest
Outlives, forgets, and hides the generations.
I love to watch thee in the leafy twilight,
Working in silent patience at the Seasons,
With unseen unheard forces, old in Nature;
Or hear the living harp, O lyric Forest,
With which thou hast enchanted generations,
In tones now weird, now joyous and triumphant.
Working in silent patience at the Seasons,
With unseen unheard forces, old in Nature;
Or hear the living harp, O lyric Forest,
With which thou hast enchanted generations,
In tones now weird, now joyous and triumphant.
The Winds sweep by, blind Servants of the Seasons,
Caressing all the lightest things in Nature—
The heathers, ferns and hare-bells of the forest—
Felling the oak, the pride of generations,
The Monarch that defied the years, triumphant,
And sheltered its dumb children in the twilight.
Caressing all the lightest things in Nature—
The heathers, ferns and hare-bells of the forest—
Felling the oak, the pride of generations,
5
And sheltered its dumb children in the twilight.
Oh there is nothing in eternal Nature,
Save Ocean, half so thrilling as the forest,
So full of charm to fleeting generations;
Outliving life, outliving death, triumphant;
Ineffable in sunshine and in twilight,
Inscrutable in all its wondrous seasons.
Save Ocean, half so thrilling as the forest,
So full of charm to fleeting generations;
Outliving life, outliving death, triumphant;
Ineffable in sunshine and in twilight,
Inscrutable in all its wondrous seasons.
ENVOY
So fill the forest, dreams of generations;Come, Mystery triumphant, born of twilight,
And Pleasure that Pain seasons through all Nature.
E.
| Forest Notes | |