Classic Poem

Where the fungus broad & red
Lifts its head
Like poisoned loaf of elfin bread
Where the aster grew
With the social goldenrod
In a chapel which the dew
Made beautiful for God
The maple street
In the houseless wood
O what would nature say
She spared no speech today
The fungus & the bulrush spoke
Answered the pinetree & the oak
The wizard South blew down the glen
Filled the straits & filled the wide,
Each maple leaf turned up its silver side.
All things shine in his damp ray
And all we see are pictures high
Many a high hill side
Which oaks of pride
Climb to their tops
And boys run out upon their leafy ropes

In the houseless wood
Voices followed after
Every shrub & grapeleaf
Rang with fairy laughter
I have heard them fall
Like the strain of all
King Oberons minstrelsy
Would hear the everlasting
And know the only strong
You must worship fasting
You must listen long
Words of the air
Which birds of the air
Carry aloft below around
To the isles of the deep
To the snow capped steep
To the thundercloud
To the loud bazaar
To the haram of Caliph & Kremlin of Czar
Is the verse original
Let its numbers rise & fall
As the winds do when they call
One to another

Come search the wood for flowers
Wild tea & wild pea
Grape vine & succory
Coreopsis
And liatris
Flaunting in their bowers
Grass with greenflag halfmast high
Succory to match the sky
Columbine with horn of honey
Scented fern & agrimony
Forest full of essences
Fit for fairy presences,
Peppermint & sassafras
Sweet fern, mint, & vernal grass,
Panax, black birch, sugar maple,
Sweet & scent for Dian's table,
Elder-blow, sarsaparilla,
Wild-rose, lily, dry vanilla.