The Forest

He lay asleep, and the long dark season wore:
The forest shadows marked him limb by limb
As on a dial: when the light grew dim,
A steady darkness on the spiny floor.
He lay asleep. The Alpine roses bore
Their latest blooms and withered at the rim:
The harvest moon came down and covered him,
And passed, and it was stiller than before.
Then fell the autumn, little falling there
Save some quick-dropping fir-cone on the mould.
Save with the ebbing leaves his own white hair;
And the great stars grew wintry; in the cold
Of a wide-spreading dusk, so woodmen say.
As one asleep on his right arm he lay.