1889.
III.
Through the fresh woods there fleet
Fawns, with bright eyes, light feet:
Bright eyes, and feet that spurn
The pure green fern.
Headed by leaping does,
The swift procession goes
Through thickets, over lawns:
Followed by fawns.
Over slopes, over glades,
Down dells and leafy shades,
Away the quick deer troop:
A wildwood group.
Under the forest airs,
A life of grace is theirs:
Courtly their look; they seem
Things of a dream.
Some say, but who can say?
That a charmed troop are they:
Once youths and maidens white!
These may be right.
IV.
Over me, beeches broad beneath blue sky
In light winds through their cooling leaves rejoice:
Now, the red squirrel, lithe and wild, runs by;
Anon the wood dove from deep glades, with voice
Of mellow music, lulls the air:
All murmurs of the forest, stirs and cries,
Come stilly down green coverts; the high fern
Smells of rich earth aglow from burning skies.
Hither my greenwood ways love best to turn:
Hither my lone hours gladliest fare.
But not for melancholy solitude;
Not for the fond delight of loneliness:
Though here nor voice, nor alien feet, intrude.
Lone am I: but what lone dreams dare repress
High presences of vanished days?
Long billowy reaches of unnumbered trees
Roll downward from this haunt, and break at length
Against such walls, as no man unmoved sees,
But hails the past of splendour and of strength:
And heights of immemorial praise.