University of Virginia Library

Here in this cool, secluded glen
Alone with Nature let me lie,
Where no rude voice or peering eyes of men
Disturbs its perfect peace and privacy;
Where through the swaying firs the restless breeze
Sighs softly and the murmuring torrent flows,
Singing the same low song as on it goes,
That it hath sung for countless centuries;
Now welling through the mossy rocks, now spilled
In little sparkling falls, now lingering, stilled
In brown, deep pools to hold the mirrored skies,
As brown, as clear as some fair maiden's eyes,
And filled like them with silent mysteries.
One side the shelving slopes, through which its song
The torrent sings, the firs' tall columns throng,
Spreading their dark green tops against the blue;
And on the brown, fine carpet at their feet
Long strips and flecks of sun strike glimmering through,
Where gleaming specks of insects through them fleet.
Along the other slope green beeches spread
Their spotted canopy of light and shade,
And on the brown, transparent stream below
Their quivering, tessellated pavement throw.

Here ferns and bracken spread their plumy spray;
Here the wild rose gropes out against the gray
Moss-cushioned rocks, and o'er the torrent swings;
Here o'er the bank the sombre ivy strings,
And the scorned thistle bears its royal crown;
Here wild clematis stretches, wavering down;
And, 'mid a mass of tangled weeds that know
Scarcely a name, and all neglected grow,
A tribe of gracious flowers peeps smiling up:
The humble dandelion, buttercup,
And spindled gorse here show their gleaming gold;
The bright-eyed daisy, innocently bold,
Stars the lush green; the purple malva lifts
Its spreading cup. From tufted blackberries drifts
A snow of blossoms, scenting with their breath
The summer air; and, sacred to St. John,
The magic flower that maidens cull at dawn;
And blue forget-me-nots, scarce seen beneath
The feathery grass; and the white hemlock's face;
And all the wild, untrained, and happy race
Of Nature's children, through whose blooms the bees,
Busy for honey hovering, hum and tease.
Softened, by distance, from the woods remote,
Rings, now and then, the blackbird's liquid note;
Or the jay scolds, or far up in the sky
Trills out the lark's long, quivering melody;
Or, its melodious passion pouring out,
In the green shadow hid, the nightingale
Stills all the world to listen to its tale,
The same sweet tale that centuries past it sung
To Grecian ears, when Poesy was young;
Or the glad goldfinch tunes his tremulous throat,
Or with a sudden chirp some linnet gray
Darts up the gorge, to drink at these cool springs,
And at a glimpse of me flits swift away.

A faint, fine hum of myriad quivering wings
Fills all the air; the idle butterfly
Drifts down the glen; and through the grasses low
Creep swarms of busy creatures to and fro,
And have their loves, and joys, and strife and hate,
Intent upon a life to us unknown.
On the o'erhanging boulders glance and gleam
Quick, quivering lights reflected from the stream,
Where water-spiders poise and darting skate,
Their shadows on its dappled sand-floor thrown.
Across the boulders bare and pine-slopes brown,
Like dials of the day that passes by,
The firs' long shadow-index silently,
So silently, is ever stealing on,
We scarcely heed the unpausing race of time
So swift and noiseless; and some subtle spell
Seems to have lulled to sleep this shadowy dell,
As if it lay in some enchanted clime,
Haunted by dreams that never poet's rhyme
Nor music's voice to waking ears can tell.

All is so peaceful here that weary thought
Half falls asleep, nor seeks to find the key
Of the pervading, unsolved mystery
Through which we move, by which our life is wrought.
Here, magnetized by Nature, if the eye
Upglancing should discern in the soft shade
Some Dryad's form, or, where the waters braid
Their silvery windings, haply should descry
Some naked Naiad leaning on the rocks,
Her feet dropped in its basin, while her locks
She lifts from off her shoulders unafraid,
And gazes round, or looks into the cool
Tranced mirror of the softly-gleaming pool,
To see her polished limbs and bosom bare
And sweet, dim eyes and smile reflected there,
'T would scarce seem strange, but only as it were
A natural presence, natural as yon rose
That spreads its beauty careless to the air,
And knows not whence it came nor why it grows,
And just as simply, innocently there;
The sweet presiding spirit of some tree,
The soul indwelling in the murmuring brook,
Whose voice we hear, whose form we cannot see,
On whom, at last, 't is given us to look;
As if dear Nature for a moment's space
Lifted her veil and met us face to face.

Such Grecian thought is false to our rude sense,
That naught believes, or feels, or hears, or sees
Of what the world in happier days of Greece
Felt with a feeling gentle and intense.
We are divorced from Nature; our dull ears
Catch not the music of the finer spheres,
See not the spirits that in Nature dwell
In leafy groves through which they glancing look,
In the dim music of the singing brook,
And lurk half hidden and half audible.
To us the world is dead. The soul of things,
The life that haunts us with imaginings,
That lives, breathes, throbs in all we hear and see,
The charm, the secret hidden everywhere,
Evades all reason, spurns philosophy,
And scorns by boasting science to be tracked.
Hunt as we will all matter to the end,
Life flits before it; last, as first, we find
Naught but dead structure and the dust of fact;
The infinite gap we cannot apprehend,
The somewhat that is life—the informing mind.
Even here in this still glen I cannot flee
The secret that torments us everywhere.
In cloud, sky, rock, tree, man, its mystery
Pursues us ever to the same despair.
What says this brook, that ever murmuring flows?
What whisper these tall trees that talk alway?
What secret hides the perfume of this rose?
What is it that dear Nature strives to say?
Our sense is dull, we cannot understand
The voice we hear—but, oh! so far away
As from a world beyond our night and day,
A dream-voice from some dim, imagined land.
Here dreaming on in idle, tranquil mood,
Lulled by the tune that Nature softly plays,
Our wandering thoughts, by some strange spell subdued,
Are calmed and stilled, and all seems sweet and good,
And she our mother seems, that on her breast,
With murmuring voice, and gentle, whispering ways,
Hushes her child within her arms to rest;
And, though the child scarce knoweth what she says,
He feels her presence gently o'er him brood.

And yet, O Nature, thou no mother art,
But for a moment, like to this, at best
A stern step-mother thou, that to thy heart
Claspest thy child by some caprice possessed,
Then, careless of his fate, abandonest,
Flinging him off from thee to wail and cry,
All heedless if he live or if he die.
Is it for us thou, reckless, squanderest
Thy beauty with such wide and lavish waste?
For us? Ah! no; were we all swept away,
What wouldst thou care? No change upon thy face
Would answer to our sorrow or disgrace,
Alike to those who love, laugh, weep, or pray.
Glares not the sun impertinent upon
Our darkest griefs? Do not the glad flowers blow,
The unpausing hours, days, seasons, come and go,
Despite our joys and loves? To all our woe
Have we a sympathetic answer ever won?
Are thy stones softer on the path we tread
Because our thoughts are journeying with the dead?
Is not this world, with all its beauty, rife
With endless war, death preying upon life,
Perpetual horror, pain, crime, discord, strife,
Night chasing day, storms driving sunshine out?
And yet through all impassive, stern, and cold,
With folded hands, which hide whate'er they hold,
Like Nemesis, thou standest, speaking not,
Before the gates of Fate; and, if they ope,
To show one glimpse beyond, one gleam of hope,
'T is but an instant; then the door is shut;
And, poor, blind creatures, here astray we grope,
Stretching our hands out where we cannot see,
Through the dark paths of this world's mystery.

And yet, why spoil the day with thoughts like these?
Better to lie beneath these whispering trees
And take the joy the moment gives, and feel
The glad, pure day, the gently lifting breeze
That steals their odors from the unconscious flowers,
Nor seek what Nature never will reveal,
The hidden secret of our destinies.
Let all go—whate'er it is it is,
And, come what will, this day, at least, is ours.
My hour is gone, dear glen, and now farewell.
Here you the self-same song, bright brook, will sing;
Here you, dark firs, the self-same tale will tell,
Mysterious, to the low wind whispering,
How many a summer day to other ears,
When I am gone, beyond all doubts, hopes, fears,
Beyond all sights and sounds of this fair world,
Into the dim beyond; in time to come
Will many a dreamer sit for many an hour,
Lulled by your murmur, and the insects' hum,
And many a poet praise you. Clasped and curled
Beside these rocks, and plucking some chance flower,
Will many a pair of lovers linger, dumb
With loves too much for utterance, all too weak
The charm they feel, the joy they own, to speak.
Here wandering from the noisy city's maze,
How many an idle, casual visitor
Thy beauty with a careless tone will praise,
And turn away without one true heart-stir.
Here the dull woodman, thinking but of gain,
Heedless of any Dryad's shriek of pain,
Will fell with ringing axe this living wood;
And here some gentle child, o'er whom the dream
And lingering lights of former being brood,
Perchance may meet some Naiad at this stream,
By whom her language shall be understood,
And here together they will talk and play,
And many a secret she will strive to tell
That here she learns, and all the world will say,
Laughing: “Dear child, this is not credible.”
Ah Heaven! we know so much who nothing know!
Only to children and in poets' ears,
At whom the wise world wondering smiles and sneers,
Secrets of God are whispered here below.
Only to them, and those whose gentle heart
Is opened wide to list for Beauty's call,
Will Nature lean to whisper the least part
Of that great mystery which circles all.
The wise, dull world, with solid facts content,
Laughs at all dreamers, deeming nothing good
Save what is touched, seen, handled, understood.
Well, let it laugh! To me the firmament
Is more than gleaming lights; more than mere wood
These leafy groves; and more these murmuring streams
Than running waters. This wide, vaporous sky,
Painted by morning, fired by sunset gleams,
These winds that breathe around this swinging world,
This restless ocean, moaning constantly,
These storms across the shuddering forests whirled,
The season's still processions, day and night,
That each the other silently pursues,
Sure and unchanging in their even flight,
And all these changing shows and forms and hues
Not for mere use were given, nor mere delight.
Beauty is theirs and power, and, more, a fine
Dim mystery shrouds them man can ne'er divine.
Harvests that sweeten life and thought they bear
Imponderable, exquisite, and rare,
That take the spirit with a sweet surprise.
Dreams haunt them, intimations, prophecies,
Glad lessons, adumbrations, spirit gleams,
That, when the loving heart evokes them, rise.
Others may reap their solid facts; for me,
I am content to gather inwardly
Their silent harvest of poetic dreams.