The forest has its horrors, as the sea:

and ye that enter from the staling lea

into the early freshness kept around

the waiting trunks that watch its rarer bound,

after the glistening song that, sprinkled, leaves

an innocence upon the glancing leaves;

O ye that dream to find the morning yet

secret and chaste, beside her mirror set,

some glimmering source o’ershadow’d, where the light

is coolness felt, whom filter’d glints invite

thro’ the slow-shifting green transparency;

O ye that hearken towards pale mystery

a rustle of hidden pinions, and obey

the beckoning of each little leaf asway:

return, return, or e’er to warn you back

the shadow bend along your rearward track

longer and longer from the brooding west;

return, and evening shall bosom your rest

in the warm gloom that wraps the blazing hearth:

there hear from wither’d lips long wean’d of mirth

the tale that lulls old watches; — How they rode,

brave-glittering once, where the brave morning glow’d

along the forest-edges, and were lost

for ever, where the crossing trunks are most;

and, far beyond the dim arcades of song,

where moon-mist weaves a dancing elfin throng,

and far beyond the luring glades that brood

around a maiden thought of Quietude,

the savage realm begins, of lonely dread,

black branches from the fetid marish bred

that lurks to trap the loyal careless foot,

and gaping trunks protrude a snaky root

o’er slinking paths that centre, where beneath

a sudden rock on the short blasted heath,

bare-set, a cavern lurks and holds within

its womb, obscene with some corroding sin,

coil’d on itself and stirring, a squat shade

before the entrance rusts a broken blade.

 

The forest hides its horrors, as the sea.