A Dream in the Woods

"And this our life, exempt from public haunt,Finds tongues in trees."--As You Like It.

'Twas in a shady Avenue,Where lofty Elms abound--And from a TreeThere came to meA sad and solemn sound,That sometimes murmur'd overhead,And sometimes underground.

Amongst the leaves it seem'd to sigh,Amid the boughs to moan;It mutter'd in the stem, and thenThe roots took up the tone;As if beneath the dewy grassThe dead began to groan.

No breeze there was to stir the leaves;No bolts that tempests launch,To rend the trunk or rugged bark;No gale to bend the branch;No quake of earth to heave the roots,That stood so stiff and staunch.

No bird was preening up aloft,To rustle with its wing;No squirrel, in its sport or fear.From bough to bough to spring.The solid boleHad ne'er a holeTo hide a living thing!

No scooping hollow cell to lodgeA furtive beast or fowl,The martin, bat,Or forest catThat nightly loves to prowl,Nor ivy nooks so apt to shroudThe moping, snoring owl.

But still the sound was in my ear,A sad and solemn sound,That sometimes murmur'd overhead,And sometimes underground--'Twas in a shady AvenueWhere lofty Elms abound.

Oh hath the Dryad still a tongueIn this ungenial clime?Have Sylvan Spirits still a voiceAs in the classic prime--To make the forest voluble,As in the olden time?

The olden time is dead and gone;Its years have fill'd their sum--And e'en in Greece--her native Greece--The Sylvan Nymph is dumb--From ash, and beech, and aged oak,No classic whispers come,

From Poplar, Pine, and drooping Birch,And fragrant Linden Trees;No living soundE'er hovers round,Unless the vagrant breeze,The music of the merry bird,Or hum of busy bees.

But busy bees forsake the ElmThat bears no bloom aloft--The Finch was in the hawthorn-bush,The Blackbird in the croft;And among the firs the brooding Dove,That else might murmur soft.

Yet still I heard that solemn sound,And sad it was to boot,From ev'ry overhanging bough,And each minuter shoot;From rugged trunk and mossy rind,And from the twisted root.

From these,--a melancholy moan;From those,--a dreary sigh;As if the boughs were wintry bare,And wild winds sweeping by--Whereas the smallest fleecy cloudWas steadfast in the sky.

No sign or touch of stirring airCould either sense observe--The zephyr had not breath enoughThe thistle-down to swerve,Or force the filmy gossamersTo take another curve.

In still and silent slumber hush'dAll Nature seem'd to be:From heaven above, or earth beneath,No whisper came to me--Except the solemn sound and sadFrom that MYSTERIOUS TREE!

A hollow, hollow, hollow, sound,As is that dreamy roarWhen distant billows boil and boundAlong a shingly shore--But the ocean brim was far aloof,A hundred miles or more.

No murmur of the gusty sea,No tumult of the beach,However they may foam and fret,The bounded sense could reach--Methought the trees in mystic tongueWere talking each to each!--

Mayhap, rehearsing ancient talesOf greenwood love or guilt,Of whisper'd vowsBeneath their boughs;Or blood obscurely spilt,Or of that near-hand Mansion HouseA royal Tudor built.

Perchance, of booty won or sharedBeneath the starry cope--Or where the suicidal wretchHung up the fatal rope;Or Beauty kept an evil tryste,Insnared by Love and Hope.

Of graves, perchance, untimely scoop'dAt midnight dark and dank--And what is underneath the sodWhereon the grass is rank--Of old intrigues,And privy leagues,Tradition leaves in blank.

Of traitor lips that mutter'd plots--Of Kin who fought and fell--God knows the undiscovered schemes,The arts and acts of Hell,Perform'd long generations since,If trees had tongues to tell!

With wary eyes, and ears alert,As one who walks afraid,I wander'd down the dappled pathOf mingled light and shade--How sweetly gleam'd that arch of blueBeyond the green arcade!

How cheerily shone the glimpse of Heav'nBeyond that verdant aisle!All overarch'd with lofty elms,That quench'd the light, the while,As dim and chillAs serves to fillSome old Cathedral pile!

And many a gnarled trunk was there,That ages long had stood,Till Time had wrought them into shapesLike Pan's fantastic brood;Or still more foul and hideous formsThat Pagans carve in wood!

A crouching Satyr lurking here--And there a Goblin grim--As staring full of demon lifeAs Gothic sculptor's whim--A marvel it had scarcely beenTo hear a voice from him!

Some whisper from that horrid mouthOf strange, unearthly tone;Or wild infernal laugh, to chillOne's marrow in the bone.But no--it grins like rigid Death,And silent as a stone!

As silent as its fellows be,For all is mute with them--The branch that climbs the leafy roof--The rough and mossy stem--The crooked root,And tender shoot,Where hangs the dewy gem.

One mystic Tree alone there is,Of sad and solemn sound--That sometimes murmurs overhead,And sometimes underground--In all that shady Avenue,Where lofty Elms abound.