III.
Thought I was in a forest—a bright, a green, a glorious forest. My heart ached, and I had turned from the heated world and its miseries, and where the lofty branches had intertwined and woven a pleasant twilight dwelling place, I sat me down to meditate. Then I scribbled and scribbled—and thus, I scribbled—
This is indeed a sacred solitude,
And beautiful as sacred. Here no sound
Save such as breathes a soft tranquillity,
Falls on the ear; and all around, the eye
Meets nought but hath a moral. These deep shades—
With here and there an upright trunk of ash
Or beech or nut, whose branches interlaced
O’ercanopy us, and, shutting out the day,
A twilight make—they press upon the heart
With force amazing and unutterable.
These trunks enormous, from the mountain side
Ripp’d roots and all by whirlwinds—those vast pines
Athwart the ravine’s melancholy gloom
Transversely cast—these monarchs of the wood,
Dark, gnarl’d, centennial oaks that throw their arms
So proudly up—those monstrous ribs of rock
That, shiver’d by the thunder-stroke, and hurl’d
From yonder cliff, their bed for centuries,
Here crush’d and wedged—all by their massiveness
And silent strength, impress us with a sense
Of Deity. And here are wanted not
More delicate forms of beauty. Numerous tribes
Of natural flowers do blossom in these shades,
Meet for the scene alone. At ev’ry step,
Some beauteous combination of soft hues,
Less brilliant though than those which deck the fields,
The eye attracts. Mosses of softest green,
Creep round the trunks of the decayed trees;
And mosses, hueless as the mountain snow,
Inlay the turf. Here, softly peeping forth,
The eye detects the little violet
Such as the city boasts—of paler hue,
But fragrant more. The simple forest flower,
And that pale gem the wind flower, falsely named,
Here greet the cautious search—less beautiful
Than poets feign, though lovely to the eye.
These with their modest forms so delicate,
And breath of perfume, send th’ unwilling heart
And all its aspirations, to the source
Of Life and Light. Nor woodland sounds are wanting,
Such as the mind to that soft melancholy
The poet feels, lull soothingly. The winds
Are playing with the forest tops in glee,
And music make. Sweet rivulets
Slip here and there from out the crevices
Of rifled rocks, and, welling ’mid the roots
Of prostrate trees or blocks transversely east,
Form jets of driven snow. Soft symphonies
Of birds unseen, on ev’ry side swell out,
As if the spirit of the wood complain’d
Harmonious, and most prodigal of sound;
And these can woo the spirit with such power,
And tune it to a mood so exquisite—
That the enthusiast heart forgets the world,
Its strifes, and follies—and seeks only here
To satisfy its thirst for happiness.