A Forest Walk

A lovely sky, a cloudless sun,
A wind that breathes of leaves and flowers
O'er hill, through dale, my steps have won,
To the cool forest's shadowy bowers;
One of the paths all round that wind,
Traced by the browsing herds, I choose,
And sights and sounds of human kind
In nature's lone recesses lose;
The beech displays its marbled bark,
The spruce its green tent stretches wide,
While scowls the hemlock, grim and dark,
The maple's scallop'd dome beside:
All weave on high a verdant roof,
That keeps the very sun aloof,
Making a twilight soft and green,
Within the column'd, vaulted scene.
Sweet forest-odours have their birth
From the clothed boughs and teeming earth:
Where pine-cones dropp'd, leaves piled ana dead,
Long tufts of grass, and stars of fern,
With many a wild flower's fairy urn,
A thick, elastic carpet spread;
Here, with its mossy pall, the trunk,
Resolving into soil, is sunk;
There, wrench'd but lately from its throne,
By some fierce whirlwind circling past,
Its huge roots mass'd with earth and stone,
One of the woodland kings is cast.
Above, the forest-tops are bright
With the broad blaze of sunny light:
But now a fitful air-gust parts
The screening branches, and a glow
Of dazzling, startling radiance darts
Down the dark stems, and breaks below:
The mingled shadows off are roll'd,
The sylvan floor is bathed in gold:
Low sprouts and herbs, before unseen,
Display their shades of brown and green:
Tints brighten o'er the velvet moss,
Gleams twinkle on the laurel's gloss;
The robin, brooding in her nest,
Chirps as the quick ray strikes her breast;
And, as my shadow prints the ground,
I see the rabbit upward bound,
With pointed ears an instant look,
Then scamper to the darkest nook,
Where, with crouch'd limb, and staring eye,
He watches while I saunter by.
A narrow vista, carpeted
With rich green grass, invites my tread;
Here showers the light in golden dots,
There sleeps the shade in ebon spots,
So blended, that the very air
Seems network as I enter there.
The partridge, whose deep-rolling drum
Afar has sounded on my ear,
Ceasing his beatings as I come,
Whirrs to the sheltering branches near;
The little milk-snake glides away,
The brindled marmot dives from day;
\nd now, between the boughs, a space
Of the blue, laughing sky I trace:
On each side shrinks the bowery shade;
Before me spreads an emerald glade;
The sunshine steeps its grass and moss,
That couch my footsteps as I cross;
Merrily hums the tawny bee,
The glittering humming-bird I see;
Floats the bright butterfly along,
The insect choir is loud in song:
A spot of light and life, it seems
A fairy haunt for fancy dreams.
Here stretch'd, the pleasant turf I press,
In luxury of idleness;
Sun-streaks, and glancing wings, and sky,
Spotted with cloud-shapes, charm my eye;
While murmuring grass, and waving trees,
Their leaf-harps sounding to the breeze,
And water-tones that tinkle near,
Blend their sweet music to my ear;
And by the changing shades alone
The passage of the hours is known.