Advice to a Forest
O trees, to whom the darkness is a childScampering in and out of your long, green beards;O trees, to whom sunlight is a tattered pilgrimCounting his dreams within your hermitageAnd slipping down the road, in twilight robes;O trees, whose leaves make an incense of soundReeling with the beat of your caught feet,Do not mingle your tips in startled hatred,When little men come to fell you.These men will saw you into stripsOf pointed brooding, blind with paint,But underneath you men will chaseThe grey staccato of their livesDown a glaring maze of wallsMuch harder than your own.And when, at last, the deep brown gazeOf stolidly amorous time steals over you,The little men who bit into your heartsWill stray off in a patter of rabbits’ feet.Look down upon these children thenWith the aloof and weary toleranceThat all still things possess,O trees, to whom the darkness was a childScampering in and out of your long, green beards.
Words in this poem
- hermitage n.
- The habitation of a hermit; a secluded residence. [OE. hermitage, ermitage, F. hermitage, ermitage. See Hermit.]
- glaring a.
- Clear; notorious; open and bold; barefaced; as, a glaring crime.
- maze n.
- A wild fancy; a confused notion. [OE. mase; cf. OE. masen to confuse, puzzle, Norweg. masast to fall into a slumber, masa to be continually busy, prate, chatter, Icel. masa to chatter, dial. Sw.]
- patter v. i.
- To strike with a quick succession of slight, sharp sounds; as, pattering rain or hail; pattering feet. [Freq. of pat to strike gently.]
- tolerance n.
- The power or capacity of enduring; the act of enduring; endurance. [L. tolerantia: cf. F. tolérance.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Advice to a Forest is in the public domain. This text is taken from Advice: A Book of Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #60252; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Maxwell Bodenheim, Advice to a Forest, in Advice: A Book of Poems (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60252, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bodenheim-advice/advice-to-a-forest.html, id L23369.
Form and metre
Advice to a Forest is 24 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AB----C-D-------D-C---AB childA · beardsB · pilgrim · hermitage · robes · sound · feetC · hatred · youD · strips · paint · chase · lives · walls · own · gaze · youD · hearts · feetC · then · tolerance · possess · childA · beardsB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| O trees, to whom the darkness is a child | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Scampering in and out of your long, green beards; | 10 | /˘········ |
| O trees, to whom sunlight is a tattered pilgrim | 12 | ····/···/˘/˘ |
| Counting his dreams within your hermitage | 9 | /˘·····/˘ |
| And slipping down the road, in twilight robes; | 10 | ·/˘····/·· |
| O trees, whose leaves make an incense of sound | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| Reeling with the beat of your caught feet, | 9 | /˘······· |
| Do not mingle your tips in startled hatred, | 11 | ··/˘···/˘/˘ |
| When little men come to fell you. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| These men will saw you into strips | 8 | ········ |
| Of pointed brooding, blind with paint, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| But underneath you men will chase | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| The grey staccato of their lives | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| Down a glaring maze of walls | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Much harder than your own. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| And when, at last, the deep brown gaze | 8 | ········ |
| Of stolidly amorous time steals over you, | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| The little men who bit into your hearts | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Will stray off in a patter of rabbits’ feet. | 11 | ·····/˘·/˘· |
| Look down upon these children then | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| With the aloof and weary tolerance | 9 | ··˘/·/˘/˘ |
| That all still things possess, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| O trees, to whom the darkness was a child | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Scampering in and out of your long, green beards. | 10 | /˘········ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.