Natura Naturans

The woodlands have a green world all their own.
Young joy of life among the delicate leaves.
To men who wander under them unknown,
Where whispering Zephyr light and shadow weaves.
And dewy-eyed blithe birds of various tone
Thrid labyrinths ilhmiined ; singing heaves
Their dewy bosoms while they charm the bowers.
And gaily set a-swinging many a spray
With buoyant, swift caprices ; tall beech towers,
Mossed bole of mottled variegated grey,
From thronging grasses flecked with sulphur flowers ;
Among the boughs a sweet perpetual play
Of living things newborn ; a mystic sound
Pervades their interwoven sea -murmuring roof,
Where love-built nests, where cooing doves abound ;
Of Love's high advent the young world gives proof ;
Love at full flood makes earth one holy ground ;
Love's hands aerial weave a wondrous woof
Of melody and mystery Divine ;
So that I wish for my dear dead a dwelling
No lovelier than this lovely land of mine
When Spring arrives, and waves her wand, compelling
A million blades and blooms to rise and shine ;
Yea, from sere leaf-lace, humid mould sweetsmelling,
Life-feeding generations of the dead.
Beauty and health are nourished with young joy.
Here the veined fragile sorrel bells are fed.
Whose leaf's a triple heart ; babe roseleaves toy
With hazel wands, wee crimson thorns they wed
With wandering woodbine ; leaflets tumble coy
Out of pink winter-cots o'er one another,
Rumpled and laughing ; by sweet sun called early
Obeying the dear still voice of their Mother ;
While infant ferns wake peeping, scaled and curly ;
Ruffled, fresh green leaf-sister calls to brother;
The warm South shepherds showers mild and pearly.
Here lady beech, embraced by her lord oak,
Leaned in his strong rude arms, while well content
Under their breaths young leaves immingling spoke
Softly, and then were silent, their souls blent.
The ecstasy of nightingales awoke
Within the downy- foliaged firmament ;
Rivers and lakes of hyacinths meander
Among the teeming greenery below.
Where many a humming velvet bee may wander,
And the dew-elves' illuminations glow,
'Mid tiny herbs, pale primrose, blue germander.
But those great aisles of pillared forest show
Large open spaces, clear of trees, whose mast.
And russet leaves of many years have browned
Floors, only greenlit by young fern ; here passed
The storm's might, wrestling with the strength of crowned
Tall forest kings, and bowed their pride at last.
Yonder a piteous sight upon the ground !
Huge oak that would nor bend nor break, uprooted,
Though with prodigious talons it grasped earth,
Deepbased in Night ; as high in Day fairfruited ;
Dowered with a home inalienable from birth.
It seemed for ever here ; whose fall was bruited
With league-wide tumult, when the storm's fierce mirth
Hurled low the giant, and a wide wound made
In rich brown soil ; a very garden-space
Of mould and stones the tree clutched as it swayed
In that dread shock ; there many a flower's fair face
Peers now 'mid those great rent roots naked laid.
The forest patriarchs live out long years.
Their inner secret all unknown to man ;
They groan, they labour in the storm, with tears
Of rain they twinkle, glow with light ; but can
Any divine what feeling saddens, cheers,
What mind informs the inarticulate clan ?
Nay, they are resting on their own calm shade.
While men pine under them, men fume and fret;
The gentle grass and flowers are ne'er afraid ;
With dews, not tears, the woodland ways are wet ;
Though human hearts were broken while they prayed.
Serenely breathed the wee wild violet.
Yon trees live out long lives ; our generations,
Like their own leaves, rise, fall about their feet,
Through periods ; mere shadowed clouds men fleet, —
While these drowsed Druid forms keep wonted stations,
Lives individual, dynasties, and nations ;
Their mystic souls and ours may never meet.
These have known rose-red youth, fair love, young gladness,
Have seen Heartshine ascend the heavens to wane,
Heard the blithe hunter's horn, bells toiled for sadness,
Seen child grow man, then turn to child again,
Stern, strong resolve fade out to halt, blind madness.
Their peers in age beheld the Red King droop,
His heart stilled by a random-glancing dart.
While pulsing with hot life, and loud with hope ;
Beheld the royal jester, lewd and swart,
Cower 'mid their boughs from that rough
Roundhead troop.
Questing like sleuthhounds under their green heart ;
Saw Henry hide his Rose-of-all-the-world
In bowers like these, lest Eleanor discover
The adored and dainty morsel closely curled
Away from her, fierce wedded hawk a-hover.
He found her slain, the nest to ruin hurled,
Then raving anguish burned the royal lover.
But yonder ants with their economies
Are every whit as wonderful as man !
For note how each his proper function plies.
Counting for world-crest his poor bustling clan ;
These have towns, loves, wars, long-drawn histories, —
And famous bards, with critics born to ban!
Ah, men ! your laughter-moving airs and graces.
Your fond assumptions of authority,
Seem antics to the calm eternal faces
Regarding you from yonder world-eyed sky ;
For haughty gesture, proud look, royal paces.
Turn palsy, rheum-drops, flotsam idling by !
Leaf-filtered sunshine lies upon the moss,
Between cool shadows, like a tranquil blessing ;
The exhilarated merry branches toss
Their newborn leaves in azure air caressing ;
With red-tipped daisies, cups of silver gloss,
Young Spring the wrongs of Winter is redressing.
Hearken ! what passion-hearted wealth of song
With fire-spray, mazy blossom, thrills the air.
Vicing a moment with more during throng
Of budded plants, that make wood-floors so fair ;
From fountain-stems of pining low and long
Flies many-spangling rapture rich and rare.
The solemn-pillared aisles are misty-dim
With distance ; their moss waves are green and brown ;
All blends with the sweet mood of her and him,
Whose fair young forms are lying listless down
Under a forest lord of giant limb,
His dragon roots around their beauty thrown.
They leaned anear a stately tower of beech.
Against a caverned ruin of old oak.
Where nestling very closely each to each,
They were so happy that they seldom spoke,
Silently waiting for dear Love to teach ;
Whose breath was gentler than mild airs that woke
In festal foliage, tenderly defined
Athwart the still blue waters of a lake,
A woodbird's flight away, where moorhens find
Their reedy home ; with flash and plash they make
Warm stillness sweeter for the twain reclined,
As o'er the water their glad way they take ;
And yet anon a harmless sylvan sound
Of squirrel, bird, or restless russet leaf
Startles the timid hearts with sudden bound —
They fear some coldly-prying human thief
May snatch the bliss wherein they both are wound,
So rich and rapturous, albeit so brief !
Fair woodland labyrinths weave green lithe arms
To roof the curly head of either lover.
And downy leaves are whispering soft charms,
While to and fro the nimble Ariels hover.
Fanning desire that never dreams of harms,
Whatever sword unseen be hanging over.
Fine limbs, fair undulating delicate flesh.
Invite to joy the solitude allows,
While vital sap that rises pure and fresh
Challenging calls the kindred blood which flows
In their warm veins ; sun weaves a glowing mesh
With foliaged shadows on the smooth, white skin ;
From Pleasure's mantling bowl the ripe lips quaft";
They hear the cuckoo call leave off, begin
Ever afresh, doves coo, and the wild laugh
Of woodpecker, tit's tinkle clear and thin.
Yet for a moment they observe what half
Alarms ; it stares, they deem, with spectral scowl,
A dwarfed, deformed trunk, huge-girthed, mouldering, dark,
By Heaven's bolt blasted ; a monk's shadowy cowl
It seems to wear, one blackened arm stretched stark.
As in denunciation ; a grim ghoul
Head-tentacled, with fungus-blotched rude bark,
(In such a scene the Druid poured young blood!)
But not one leaf upon its monstrous age ;
This chilled their hearts a moment as it stood
In dead brown drifts, an evil-threatening mage ;
Yet subtle spells rose from the breathing wood !
The caterpillar in a fine silk swung
From frondage o'er them, hued like pale green jade.
While flower-bells a fairy peal faint rung ;
In leafy cradles the aurelia swayed.
And now the lovely lovers closer clung.
Feeling a summer-sense in all the glade ....
But far away one heard the woodman's axe
Splinter the cream-white, fragrant woods resounding ;
Muscle-ridged arms, andsupple stalwart backs
The man-surpassing years of trees are rounding ;
So God, the woodman, clears the space He lacks
Among His men and women, too abounding;
To warm Himself the human faggot stacks.
Is it Dame Nature's frolic thus to dangle
Baits She who made us knows we can't resist?
Set Conscience and blind Passion all a-jangle,
Then frown because we have too hotly kissed,
And done her bidding ; bad folk will she mangle ?
Nay, for Her mills use bad and good for grist !

'Mid gorgeous autumn gold she creeps to die ;
All the deep forest burns with wondrous fires ;
The low red sun glares like God's angry eye
Through black contorted boughs, whose leafy lyres
Are muttering veiled oracles on high —
While she flits haggard through rain-sodden mires.
Her heart a-flame ; wild-eyed and pale she fares ;
The branches pluck at her the while she goes;
Few songsters warble where the hectic flares,
But on a winedark bramble the wind blows
Some soft grey down, blood-reddened; an owl scares
Her hooting from the hollow oak ; she knows
That place too well ; the lake is at her feet,
Where he and she lay lapped in heaven's bliss!
Dimrobed in cloth of gold those beeches greet
Her, stately curtseying ; dusk waves they kiss,
In carmined mirrors their own image meet,
Whispering " Maiden, here your haven is
From the hard world ! " dense-thronged around the lake.
Whereon there lay a kind of oily scum.
A misty phantom brood ; she deemed they spake,
" Poor child ! and can you hesitate to come,
When Love and all your cruel race forsake.
Where kind Oblivion offers you a home ? "
The tall grey heron in chill twilight stands
Unmoved as stump or stone, until it hears
A plash, a human cry ; the form expands
Wide wings ; a grey ghost flies ; she disappears ;
The water-rings grow large.
— One roamed the strands,
Days after, a young man beset with fears
For her strange flight ; he saw above the water
At dusk a pale light by the sighing grove ;
Upon him wandering the labourer's daughter.
Missed from her home, flashed unaware, his love,
Though she loved a young noble ; her selfslaughter
Will soon be plain when that dread treasure-trove
Grim grappling-irons labouring up-buoy,
An awful formless burden which was youth,
Inanimate dim chaos which was joy !

But ah, the cruel vision, void of ruth,
Shifts now the scene, to show love's brittle toy
Broken, 'mid direr death's-heads of dull truth !
See those once lovely lovers walk the earth.
Still side by side, for both are living yet.
Yea, they were married ; but the morning mirth
Hath yielded to chill rain, and dull regret.
In the gaunt winter woodlands there is dearth
Of life and song ; in those twinned hearts who met
To dance at early dawn, there dance grim
Death
And pale gaunt Horror, with a ghastly motion ;
For now no dear enchantment of Love's breath
Transmutes dull Fact (as when through some clear ocean
Plain weeds form lambent fairy realms beneath) ;
But they have drunken Time's belittling potion,
And through once warm veins creeps the wintry frost
Of age, indifference, disillusionment,
Wrath, hate ; each droopeth, a tired haggard ghost ;
Poor cankering cares for trivial things had blent
With these to wither hopeful buds that, lost,
Can ne'er form fruit now ; so, wan eyes downbent,
They fare upon life's dreary barren road,
Snows of deep winter on bowed heads and hearts,
As on bare-boughs that groan beneath their load.
Ah ! but the acorn dropped in summer starts
A winged green seedling from its blind abode
Of burial in kind earth ; and sleep imparts
For renovation rest ; the workworn dead,
Who only longed to cease, have found more life
Unwearying ; and hearts who once were wed
(So Faith low-breathes, with strangling doubts at strife),
For all change, failure, torpor, wounds that bled,
In sunnier climes will grow true man and wife.
What shocks the best in us can ne'er be true,
Nor aught unlovely, save in outward seeming ;
These are the larval Virtues that endue
Slow ripening perfections richly teeming ;
They wore another aspect while they grew ;
But Sense may prove less near the Truth than Dreaming.