Works

Rock and root and fern and flower
They had led him for an hour
To the inmost forest, where,
In a hollow, green with moss,
That the deep ferns trailed across,
Fell a fall, a presence fair,...

Teevo cheetio cheevio chee:
O where, what can th't be?
Weedio-weedio: there again!
So tiny a trickle of s'ng-strain;
And all round not to be found
For brier, bough, furrow, or gr'en ground...

Dedicated To The Rev. J. Knowles Holland.

The beating snow-clad bell, with sounding dead,
Hath clanked four--the woodman's wak'd again;
And, as he leaves his comfortable bed,...

A man that labour'd in the wood
Had lost his honest livelihood;
That is to say,
His axe was gone astray.
He had no tools to spare;
This wholly earn'd his fare.
Without a hope beside,...

[1]

To M. The Chevalier De Bouillon.[2]

Your taste has served my work to guide;
To gain its suffrage I have tried.
You'd have me shun a care too nice,
Or beauty at too dear a price,...

A woodman whose rough heart was out of tune
(I think such hearts yet never came to good)
Hated to hear, under the stars or moon,

One nightingale in an interfluous wood...

Approach in silence. 'tis no vulgar tale
Which I, the Dryad of this hoary oak,
Pronounce to mortal ears. The second age
Now hasteneth to its period, since I rose
On this fair lawn. The groves of yonder vale...

A glint of her hair or a flash of her shoulder,
That is the most I can boast to have seen,
Then all is lost as the shadows enfold her,
Forest glades making a screen of their green,...

I went to the Wood of Flowers
(No one was with me);
I was there alone for hours.
I was happy as could be
In the Wood of Flowers.

There was grass on the ground,
There were buds on the tree,...

Here doth white Spring white violets show,
Broadcast doth white, frail wind-flowers sow
Through starry mosses amber-fair,
As delicate as ferns that grow,
Hart's-tongue and maiden-hair.
...

His bill an auger is,
His head, a cap and frill.
He laboreth at every tree, --
A worm his utmost goal.

I once a King and chief
Now am the tree-bark's thief,
Ever 'twixt trunk and leaf
Chasing the prey.

Out walking in the frozen swamp one grey day
I paused and said, "I will turn back from here.
No, I will go on farther and we shall see."
The hard snow held me, save where now and then...

I love the woods when the magic hand
Of Spring, as if sweeping the keys
Of a wornout instrument, touches the earth;
When beauty and song in the gladness of birth
Awaken the heart of the desolate land,...

A certain wood-chopper lost or broke
From his axe's eye a bit of oak.
The forest must needs be somewhat spared
While such a loss was being repair'd.
Came the man at last, and humbly pray'd...

In the sleep-haunted gloom
Born of the slumbrous twilight in these shades,
These vast and venerable collonades,
I welcome thee, dear June!

And while with head reclined,...

Barely annoying the woods,
his cabin like our woodpile
home now for chipmunks and birds,
isolated by the lily pads -
he eschewed all comfort.

The view barely cognizant,...

Dawn-cool, dew-cool
Gleams the surface of my pool
Bird haunted, fern enchanted,
Where but tempered spirits rule;
Stars do not trace their mystic lines
In my confines;...

Bird, with the voice of gold,
Dropping wild bar on bar,
To which the flowers unfold,
Star upon gleaming star,
Here in the forest old:

Bird, with the note as clear,
Cool as a bead of dew,...

An evil, stealthy water, dark as hate,
Sunk from the light of day,
'Thwart which is hung a ruined water-gate,
Creeps on its stagnant way.

Moss and the spawny duckweed, dim as air,...