“Thou askest with thy studious eyes again,
Here where the restless forest hears the main
Toss in a troubled sleep and moan. Ah, sweet,
With joy and passion the kind hour’s replete;
And what wild beauty here! where roughly run
Huge forest shadows from the westering sun,
The wood’s a subdued power gentle as
Yon tame wild-things, that in the moss and grass
Gaze with their human eyes. Here grow the lines
Of pale-starred green; and where yon fountain shines
Urned in its tremulous ferns, rest we upon
This oak-trunk of God’s thunder overthrown
Years, years agone; not where ’tis rotted brown
But where the thick bark’s firm and overgrown
Of clambering ivy blackly berried; where
Wild musk of wood decay just tincts the air,
As if some strange shrub on some whispering way,
In some dewed dell, while dreaming of one May,
In longing languor weakly tried to wake
One sometime blossom and could only make
Ghosts of such dead aromas as it knew,
And shape a specter, budding thin as dew,
To haunt these sounding miles of solitude.
Troubled thou askest, Morgane, and the mood,
Unfathomed in thine eyes, glows rash and deep
As that in some wild-woman’s found on sleep
By some lost knight upon a precipice,
Whom he hath wakened with a laughing kiss.
As that of some frail, elfin lady white
As if of watery moonbeams, filmy dight,
Who waves diaphanous beauty on some cliff
That drowsing purrs with moon-drenched pines; but if
The lone knight follow, foul fiends rise and drag
Him crashing down, while she, tall on the crag,
Triumphant mocks him with glad sorcery
Till all the wildwood echoes shout with glee.
As that bewildering mystery of a tarn,
Some mountain water, which the mornings scorn
To anadem with fire and leave gray;
To which some champion cometh when the Day
Hath tired of breding on his proud, young head
Flame-furry blooms and, golden chaplet
(Madison Julius Cawein)
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Based on Topics: God Poems, Youth Poems, Sleep Poems, Water Poems, Kiss Poems, Ghost Poems, Solitude PoemsBased on Keywords: blackly, aromas, berried, dewed, urned, anadem, morgane, tincts