Peace dwells in blessing o'er a place
folded within the hills to keep
and under dark boughs seawind-fray'd:
and the kind slopes where soothings creep,
in the gold light or the green shade,
wear evermore the ancient face
of silence, and the eyes of sleep;
because they are listening evermore
unto the seawinds what they tell
to the wise, nodding, indifferent trees
high on the ridge that guard the dell,
of wars on many a far grey shore
and how the shores decay and fade
before the obstinate old seas:
and all their triumphing is made

Fire in the heavens, and fire along the hills,
and fire made solid in the flinty stone,
thick-mass'd or scatter'd pebble, fire that fills
the breathless hour that lives in fire alone.

This valley, long ago the patient bed.
of floods that carv'd its antient amplitude,
in stillness of the Egyptian crypt outspread,
endures to drown in noon-day's tyrant mood.

Behind the veil of burning silence bound,
vast life's innumerous busy littleness
is hush'd in vague-conjectured blur of sound
that dulls the brain with slumbrous weight, unless

No emerald spring, no royal autumn-red,
no glint of morn or sullen vanquish'd day
might venture against this obscene horror's sway
blackly from the witch-blasted branches shed.

No silver bells around the bridle-head
ripple, and on no quest the pennons play:
the path's romance is shuddering disarray,
or eaten by the marsh: the knights are dead.

The Lady of the Forest was a tale:
of the white unicorns that round her sleep
gamboll'd, no turf retains a print; and man,

rare traveller, feels, athwart the knitted bale

The point of noon is past, outside: light is asleep;
brooding upon its perfect hour: the woods are deep
and solemn, fill'd with unseen presences of light
that glint, allure, and hide them; ever yet more bright
(it seems) the turn of a path will show them: nay, but rest;
seek not, and think not; dream, and know not; this is best:
the hour is full; be lost; whispering, the woods are bent,
This is the only revelation; be content.
The forest has its horrors, as the sea:
and ye that enter from the staling lea
into the early freshness kept around

O friendly shades, where anciently I grew!
me entering at dawn a child ye knew,
all little welcoming leaves, and jealous wove
your roof of lucid emerald above,
that scarce therethro' the envious sun might stray,
save smiling dusk or, lure for idle play,
such glancing finger your chance whim allows,
all that long forenoon of the tuneful boughs;
which growing on, the myriad small noise
and flitting of the wood-life's busy joys,
thro' tenuous weft of sound, had left, divined,
the impending threat of silence, clear, behind:

What tho' the outer day be brazen rude
not here the innocence of morn is fled:
this green unbroken dusk attests it wed
with freshness, where the shadowy breasts are nude,

hers guess'd, whose looks, felt dewy-cool, elude —
save this reproach that smiles on foolish dread:
wood-word, grave gladness in its heart, unsaid,
knoweth the guarded name of Quietude.

Nor start, if satyr-shapes across the path
tumble; it is but children: lo, the wrath
couchant, heraldic, of her beasts that pierce

with ivory single horn whate'er misplaced

SECRETA SILVARUM PRELUDE

Oh yon, when Holda leaves her hill
of winter, on the quest of June,
black oaks with emerald lamplets thrill
that flicker forth to her magic tune.

At dawn the forest shivers whist
and all the hidden glades awake;
then sunshine gems the milk-white mist
and the soft-swaying branches make

along its edge a woven sound
of legends that allure and flit
and horns wound towards the enchanted ground
where, in the light moon-vapours lit,

all night, while the black woods in mass,

Dusk lowers in this uneasy pause of rain;
a blackness clings and thickens on the pane
and damp grows; westward only, watery pale,
two yellow streaks, wan glory, slowly fail:
night shall be loud and thick with driving spears. —
And this was also in the haunting years
this life was also in the haunting years
when the lone window watch'd the lonely road
winding into the exiled west, across
the desolate plain, with, seldom on its fosse
tipt black against grey gloom, a poplar spire;
and I could know the sunset's broken fire

Thou cricket, that at dusk in the damp weeds,
all that, alack! my sickly garden breeds,
silverest the brown air with thy liquid note
now eve is sharp, I, hearkening, dream remote
the home my exiled heart hath somewhere known
far from these busy days that make me lone,
in twilit past, where the soon autumn damp
is gather'd black above the yellow lamp
that guides my feet towards the rustic roof
infrequent, on the forest edge, aloof,
as I return, nor fail to greet the way
(ah, when?) the witness of my childish play,

Peace were in the woods, perchance,
where the kind paths of romance
know a dear deserted hall:
and the lands of legend call
to the dim disquiet heart,
ah, that once their mother-art
fashion'd slow in tender ways
where the long unnoticed days
pale to dewy silver eves
in the wisdom of the leaves.