SOLITUDE.

How still it is here in the woods. The trees

Stand motionless, as if they did not dare

To stir, lest it should break the spell. The air

Hangs quiet as spaces in a marble frieze.

Even this little brook, that runs at ease,

Whispering and gurgling in its knotted bed,

Seems but to deepen with its curling thread

Of sound the shadowy sun-pierced silences.

Sometimes a hawk screams or a woodpecker

Startles the stillness from its fixèd mood

With his loud careless tap. Sometimes I hear

The dreamy white-throat from some far off tree

Pipe slowly on the listening solitude

His five pure notes succeeding pensively.