Book 10 — IN THE FOREST
Reading edition
ANON.
We lie beneath the forest shade Whose sunny tremors dapple us; She is a proud-eyed Grecian maid And I am Sardanapalus; A king uncrowned whose sole allegiance Resides in dusky forest regions.
How cool and liquid seems the sky; How blue and still the distance is! White fleets of cloud at anchor lie And mute are all existences, Save here and there a bird that launches A shaft of song among the branches.
Within this alien realm of shade We keep a sylvan Passover; We happy twain, a wayward maid, A careless, gay philosopher; But unto me she seems a Venus And Paphian grasses nod between us.
Her drooping eyelids half conceal A vague, uncertain mystery; Her tender glances half reveal A sad, impassioned history; A tale of hopes and fears unspoken Of thoughts that die and leave no token.
"Oh braid a wreath of budding sprays And crown me queen," the maiden says; "Queen of the shadowy woodland ways, And wandering winds, whose cadences Are unto thee that tale repeating Which I must perish while secreting!"
I wove a wreath of leaves and buds And flowers with golden chalices, And crowned her queen of summer woods And dreamy forest palaces; Queen of that realm whose tender story Makes life a splendor, death a glory.
Quarterly, 1856.