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Orellana and Other Poems

By J. Logie Robertson

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IN THE KNOCK-WOOD.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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179

IN THE KNOCK-WOOD.

Come up and hear the pine-trees sigh!
Come up within their shade, and lie
And let the peace which they impart
Sink soothingly within your heart.
The sigh they send from every leaf
Breathes resignation and relief;
If there's a sadness in the tone,
You put it there yourself alone!
Each in its own allotted place
Lifts as it were to Heaven its face,
The while it stretches out the hand
Of friendship to the forest band.

180

Here are no jarrings and no jeers,
No fevered haste, no vexing fears,
No envious wish that will not wait,
No jealous blasphemy of Fate.
There's pathos in the patient air
With which their annual wrong they bear,
—Forgetful of the winter's blast
And glad the summer's come at last.
A placid pensiveness pervades
The mighty mountain-forest shades,
—A pensiveness that has no fear,
No shame, of past or future year.
Come, plunge you in their solitude;
The bath will prove a double good
—A Styx for strength, for sinful pain
A Lethe to the sleepless brain.