I'Tis a woodland enchanted!
By no sadder
Than blackbirds and thrushes,
That whistle to cheer
All day in the bushes.
This woodland is haunted:
And in a small clearing,
Beyond sight or
Of human annoyance,
The little fount gushes, First smoothly, then
And gurgles and flashes,
To the maples and
Confiding its joyance;
Unconscious confiding,
Then, silent and glossy,
Slips winding and
Through alder-stems mossy,
Through gossamer
Fine as nerves, That tremble, as
Through their magnetized
The allurement
Of the water's
Thrills, gushes, and swerves.
II'Tis a woodland enchanted!
I am writing no fiction;
And this fount, its sole daughter,
To the woodland was
To pour holy water And win benediction;
In summer-noon flushes,
When all the wood hushes,
Blue dragon-flies
To and fro in the sun,
With sidelong jerk
Sink down on the rashes,
And, motionless sitting,
Hear it bubble and run,
Hear its low inward singing, With level wings
On green tasselled rushes,
To dream in the sun.
II'Tis a woodland enchanted!
The great August noonlight!
Through myriad rifts slanted,
Leaf and bole thickly
With flickering gold;
There, in warm August gloaming,
With quick, silent brightenings, From meadow-lands roaming,
The firefly
His fitful heat-lightnings;
There the magical
With meek, saintly
Steeps summit and wold;
There whippoorwills plain in the solitudes
With lone cries that
Now hither, now yonder,
Like souls doomed of old To a mild purgatory;
But through noonlight and
The little fount
Its silver saints'-bells,
That no sprite
May make his abode
Those innocent dells.
IV'Tis a woodland enchanted!
When the phebe scarce
Once an hour to his fellow. And, where red lilies flaunted,
Balloons from the
Tell summer's disasters,
The butterflies yellow,
As caught in an
Of air's silent ocean,
Sink, waver, and steadyO'er goats'-beard and asters,
Like souls of dead flowers,
With aimless emotion Still lingering
To leave their old bowers;
And the fount is no dumber,
But still gleams and flashes,
And gurgles and plashes,
To the measure of summer;
The butterflies hear it,
And spell-bound are holden,
Still balancing near itO'er the goats' beard so golden. V'Tis a woodland enchanted!
A vast silver willow,
I know not how planted,(This wood is enchanted,
And full of surprises.)Stands stemming a billow,
A motionless
Of ankle-deep mosses;
Two great roots it
To make a round basin. And there the Fount rises;
Ah, too pure a
For one sick of
To see his sad face in!
No dew-drop is
In its lupin-leaf
Than this water moss-bounded;
But a tiny
From the bottom keeps jetting,
And mermaid ne'er sounded Through the wreaths of a shell,
Down amid crimson
In some cavern of ocean,
A melody
Than the delicate pulses,
The soft, noiseless metre,
The pause and the
Of that musical motion:
I recall it, not see it;
Could vision be clearer? Half I'm fain to draw
Half tempted to flee it;
The sleeping Past wake not,
Beware!
One forward step take not,
Ah! break
That quietude rare!
By my step unaffrightedA thrush hops before it,
And o'er it A birch hangs delighted,
Dipping, dipping, dipping its tremulous hair;
Pure as the fountain, onceI came to the place,(How dare I draw nearer?)I bent o'er its mirror,
And saw a child's
Mid locks of bright gold in it;
Yes, pure as this fountain once,--Since, bow much error! Too holy a
For the man to behold in
His harsh, bearded countenance!
VI'Tis a woodland enchanted!
Ah, fly unreturning!
Yet stay;--'Tis a woodland enchanted,
Where wonderful
Have sway;
Luck flees from the cold one, But leaps to the bold
Half-way;
Why should I be daunted?
Still the smooth mirror glances,
Still the amber sand dances,
One look,--then away!
O magical glass!
Canst keep in thy
Shades of leaf and of
When summer days pass, So that when thy wave
It shapes as it pleases,
Unharmed by the breezes,
Its fine hanging gardens?
Hast those in thy keeping.
And canst not uncover,
Enchantedly sleeping,
The old shade of thy lover?
It is there!
I have found it!
He wakes, the long sleeper! The pool is grown deeper,
The sand dance is ending,
The white floor sinks,
With skies that below
Are deepening and bending,
And a child's face
That seems not to know me,
With hair that fades
In the heaven-glow round it,
Looks up at my own; Ah, glimpse through the
That leads to the throne,
That opes the child's
Regions Elysian!
Ah, too holy
For thy skirts to be
By soiled hand of mortal!
It wavers, it scatters,'Tis gone past recalling!
A tear's sudden falling The magic cup shatters,
Breaks the spell of the waters,
And the sand cone once more,
With a ceaseless renewing,
Its dance is
On the silvery floor,
O'er and o'er,
With a noiseless and ceaseless renewing.
II'Tis a woodland enchanted!
If you ask me,
Where is it?_ I can but make answer,''Tis past my disclosing;'Not to choice is it
By sure paths to
The still pool
Its blithe little dancer;
But in some day, the
Of many Septembers,
When the pulses of air rest,
And all things lie dreaming In drowsy haze
From the wood's glowing embers,
Then, sometimes, unheeding,
And asking not whither,
By a sweet inward
My feet are drawn thither,
And, looking with awe in the magical mirror,
I see through my tears,
Half doubtful of seeing,
The face unperverted, The warm golden
Of a child of five years;
And spite of the mists and the error.
And the days overcast,
Can feel that I walk undeserted,
But forever
By the glad heavens that bendedO'er the innocent past;
Toward fancy or
Doth the sweet vision win me? Dare I think that I
In the fountain of
The fleeting
Of some bygone
That still lingers in me?
