The Forest Path
Oh, the charm of idle dreamingWhere the dappled shadows dance,All the leafy aisles are teemingWith the lure of old romance!
Down into the forest dipping,Deep and deeper as we go,One might fancy dryads slippingWhere the white-stemmed birches grow.
Lurking gnome and freakish fairyIn the fern may peep and hide . . .Sure their whispers low and airyRing us in on every side!
Saw you where the pines are rockingNymph's white shoulder as she ran?Lo, that music faint and mocking,Is it not a pipe of Pan?
Hear you that elusive laughterOf the hidden waterfall?Nay, a satyr speeding afterIvy-crowned bacchanal.
Far and farther as we wanderSweeter shall our roaming be,Come, for dim and winsome yonderLies the path to Arcady!
Words in this poem
- dappled a.
- Marked with spots of different shades of color; spotted; variegated; as, a dapple horse.
- teeming a.
- Prolific; productive.
- gnome n.
- An imaginary being, supposed by the Rosicrucians to inhabit the inner parts of the earth, and to be the guardian of mines, quarries, etc. [F. gnome, prob. fr. Gr. i. e., of the treasures in the inner parts of the earth, or fr. Know.]
- freakish a.
- Apt to change the mind suddenly; whimsical; capricious.
- elusive a.
- Tending to elude; using arts or deception to escape; adroitly escaping or evading; eluding the grasp; fallacious.
- satyr n.
- A sylvan deity or demigod, represented as part man and part goat, and characterized by riotous merriment and lasciviousness. [L. satyrus, Gr. satyre.]
- bacchanal a.
- Relating to Bacchus or his festival. [L. Bacchanalis. See Bacchanalia.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- winsome a.
- Cheerful; merry; gay; light-hearted. [AS. wynsum, fr. wynn joy; akin to OS. wunnia, OHG. wunna, wunni, G. wonne, Goth. wunan to rejoice (in unwunands sad), AS. wunian to dwell. Win, v. t., Wont, a.]
- yonder adv.
- At a distance, but within view. [OE. yonder, ýonder; cf. OD. ginder, Goth. jaindr there. Yond, adv.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Forest Path is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Watchman and Other Poems (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1917; Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart, 1916), Internet Archive; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: L. M. Montgomery, The Forest Path, in The Watchman and Other Poems (1916), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/montgomery-watchman/the-forest-path.html, id L29407.
Form and metre
The Forest Path is 24 lines in 6 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in trochaic tetrameter.
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 ABAB dreamingA · danceB · teemingA · romanceB
- 2 ABAB dippingA · goB · slippingA · growB
- 3 ABAB fairyA · hideB · airyA · sideB
- 4 ABAB rockingA · ranB · mockingA · panB
- 5 ABAB laughterA · waterfallB · afterA · bacchanalB
- 6 ABAB wanderA · beB · yonderA · arcadyB
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Oh, the charm of idle dreaming | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Where the dappled shadows dance, | 7 | ···˘/·· |
| All the leafy aisles are teeming | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| With the lure of old romance! | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| Down into the forest dipping, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Deep and deeper as we go, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| One might fancy dryads slipping | 7 | ··/˘·/˘ |
| Where the white-stemmed birches grow. | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Lurking gnome and freakish fairy | 8 | /˘··/˘/˘ |
| In the fern may peep and hide . . . | 7 | ······· |
| Sure their whispers low and airy | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Ring us in on every side! | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| Saw you where the pines are rocking | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Nymph's white shoulder as she ran? | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Lo, that music faint and mocking, | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Is it not a pipe of Pan? | 7 | ······· |
| Hear you that elusive laughter | 8 | ···˘/˘/˘ |
| Of the hidden waterfall? | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Nay, a satyr speeding after | 8 | ··/˘/˘·· |
| Ivy-crowned bacchanal. | 7 | /˘·˘/˘˘ |
| Far and farther as we wander | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Sweeter shall our roaming be, | 8 | /˘·/˘/˘· |
| Come, for dim and winsome yonder | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Lies the path to Arcady! | 7 | ······· |
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.