A COIGN OF THE FOREST

The hills hang woods around, where green, below

Dark, breezy boughs of beech-trees, mats the moss,

Crisp with the brittle hulls of last year's nuts;

The water hums one bar there; and a glow

Of gold lies steady where the trailers toss

Red, bugled blossoms and a rock abuts;

In spots the wild-phlox and oxalis grow

Where beech-roots bulge the loam, protrude across

The grass-grown road and roll it into ruts.

And where the sumach brakes grow dusk and dense,

Among the rocks, great yellow violets,

Blue-bells and wind-flowers bloom; the agaric

In dampness crowds; a fungus, thick, intense

With gold and crimson and wax-white, that sets

The May-apples along the terraced creek

At bold defiance. Where the old rail-fence

Divides the hollow, there the bee-bird whets

His bill, and there the elder hedge is thick.

No one can miss it; for two cat-birds nest,

Calling all morning, in the trumpet-vine;

And there at noon the pewee sits and floats

A woodland welcome; and his very best

At eve the red-bird sings, as if to sign

The record of its loveliness with notes.

At night the moon stoops over it to rest,

And unreluctant stars. Where waters shine

There runs a whisper as of wind-swept oats.

Under mossy oak and pine

Whispering falls the fountained stream;

In its pool the lilies shine

Silvery, each a moonlight gleam.

Roses bloom and roses die

In the warm rose-scented dark,

Where the firefly, like an eye,

Winks and glows, a golden spark.

Amber-belted through the night

Swings the alabaster moon,

Like a big magnolia white

On the fragrant heart of June.

With a broken syrinx there,

With bignonia overgrown,

Is it Pan in hoof and hair,

Or his image carved from stone?

See! her casement's jessamines part,

And, with starry blossoms blent,

Like the moon she leans — O heart,

‘ Tis another firmament.