IV

Over me, beeches broad beneath blue sky
In light winds through their cooling leaves rejoice:
Now, the red squirrel, lithe and wild, runs by;
Anon the wood dove from deep glades, with voice
Of mellow music, lulls the air:
All murmurs of the forest, stirs and cries,
Come stilly down green coverts; the high fern
Smells of rich earth aglow from burning skies.
Hither my greenwood ways love best to turn:
Hither my lone hours gladliest fare.

But not for melancholy solitude;
Not for the fond delight of loneliness:
Though here nor voice, nor alien feet, intrude.
Lone am I: but what lone dreams dare repress
High presences of vanished days?
Long billowy reaches of unnumbered trees
Roll downward from this haunt, and break at length
Against such walls, as no man unmoved sees,
But hails the past of splendour and of strength:
And heights of immemorial praise.

That Castle gray, marvellous with mighty years,
Crowning the forest deeps in pride of place:
Towers, royal in their histories of tears,
And royal in their chronicles of grace:
Am I alone, beholding those?
The solitary forest bowers me round:
Yet companies august go through the glade,
Crowned and resplendent! stately and discrowned!
All, solemn from the tragedies they played:
Remembering, each the doom, the close.

Alone! Nay, but almost, would that I were
Alone: too high are these great things for me.
Immeasurable glooms and splendours here
Usurp the calm noon, where my rest should be:
O proud, O ancient Towers! farewell.
I turn from you, and take the world of men:
Gladly I mix me with the common day:
But should they vex me with their tumult: then,
Hither my feet will find the accustomed way;
Then cast once more your heightening spell.

1889