Our mortal nature's strife; And still I felt the centre of

The magic circle there,

Was one fair form that filled with love The lifeless atmosphere.

We paused beneath the pools that lie
Under the forest bough,

Each seemed as 'twere a little sky
Gulft in a world below;

A firmament of purple light

Which in the dark earth lay,

More boundless than the depth of night,
And purer than the day.

In which the lovely forests grew

As in the upper air,

More perfect both in shape and hue

Than any spreading there,

There lay the glade and neighboring lawn, And thro' the dark green wood

The white sun twinkling like the dawn

Out of a speckled cloud.

Sweet views that in our world above

Can never well be seen,

Were imaged by the water's love
Of that fair forest green.
And all was interfused beneath

With an elysian glow,

An atmosphere without a breath,
A softer day below.

Like one beloved the scene had lent

To the dark water's breast,

Its every leaf and lineament

With more than truth exprest; Until an envious wind crept by, Like an unwelcome thought,

Which from the mind's too faithful eye

Blots one dear image out.
Tho' thou art ever fair and kind,

The forest ever green,

Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind,

Than calm in waters seen.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

I

WALDEINSAMKEIT

Do not count the hours I spend
In wandering by the sea;

The forest is my loyal friend,

Like God it useth me.

In plains that room for shadows make

Of skirting hills to lie,

Bound in by streams which gave and take Their colors from the sky;

Or on the mountain-crest sublime,

Or down the oaken glade,

O what have I to do with time?
For this the day was made.

Cities of mortals woe-begone
Fantastic care derides,

But in the serious landscape lone
Stern benefit abides.

Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy,

And merry is only a mask of sad,
But, sober on a fund of joy,
The woods at heart are glad.

There the great Planter plants
Of fruitful worlds the grain,
And with a million spells enchants
The souls that walk in pain.

Still on the seeds of all he made

The rose of beauty burns;

Through times that wear and forms that

fade,

Immortal youth returns.

The black ducks mounting from the lake, The pigeon in the pines,

The bittern's boom, a desert make

Which no false art refines.

Down in yon watery nook,

Where bearded mists divide,

The gray old gods whom Chaos knew,
The sires of Nature hide.

Aloft in secret veins of air,
Blows the sweet breath of song,

O few to scale those uplands dare,
Though they to all belong!

See thou bring not to field or stone

The fancies found in books;

Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own To brave the landscape's looks.

Oblivion here thy wisdom is,
Thy thrift, the sleep of cares;
For a proud idleness like this
Crowns all thy mean affairs.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

WHEN the pine tosses its cones
To the song

of its waterfall tones,

Who speeds to the woodland walks?
To birds and trees who talks?
Caesar of his leafy Rome,
There the poet is at home.
He goes to the riverside,-
Not hook nor line hath he:

He stands in the meadows wide,-
Nor gun nor scythe to see.
Sure some god his eye enchants,
What he knows, nobody wants.
In the wood he travels glad
Without better fortune had,
Melancholy without bad.

Knowledge this man prizes best
Seems fantastic to the rest,

Pondering shadows, colors, clouds,
Grass buds, and caterpillar-shrouds,
Boughs on which the wild bees settle,
Tints that spot the violet's petal,
Why Nature loves the number five,
And why the star-form she repeats:
Lover of all things alive,
Wonderer at all he meets,
Wonderer chiefly at himself,
Who can tell him what he is,
Or how meet in human elf
Coming and past eternities?

And such I knew, a forest seer,
A minstrel of the natural year,
Foreteller of the vernal ides,

Wise harbinger of spheres and tides,
A lover true who knew by heart
Each joy the mountain dales impart;
It seemed that nature could not raise
A plant in any secret place,

In quaking bog, on snowy hill,
Beneath the grass that shades the rill,
Under the snow, between the rocks,
In damp fields known to bird and fox,
But he would come in the very hour
It opened in its virgin bower,

As if a sunbeam showed the place,
And tell its long-descended race.

It seemed as if the breezes brought him,
It seemed as if the sparrows taught him,
As if by secret sight he knew

Where in far fields the orchis grew.
Many haps fall in the field
Seldom seen by wishful eyes,
But all her shows did Nature yield
To please and win this pilgrim wise.
He saw the partridge drum in the woods,
He heard the woodcock's evening hymn,
He found the tawny thrush's broods,
And the shy hawk did wait for him.
What others did at distance hear,
And guessed within the thicket's gloom,
Was shown to this philosopher,

And at his bidding seemed to come.

In unploughed Maine, he sought the lumberer's

gang,

Where from a hundred lakes young rivers

sprang;

He trod the unplanted forest-floor, whereon

The all-seeing sun for ages hath not shone,