Other people -- innocents or lunatics -- Find in the woods only pallid charms, Fresh breezes and warm scents. They are fortunate! Others, dreamers, are seized with mystic dread. They are fortunate! While I, nervous, maddened By a vague, terrifying, and relentless remorse, Tremble in the forest: I am like a coward Who fears an ambush or thinks he sees a corpse. These huge branches, ever restless as the sea, Whence dark silence falls with shadows yet Darker: all this dim, sinister scenery Fills me with horror at once trivial and profound. The worst are summer evenings: the red of sunset Dissolves into gray-blue mists, which it dyes With fire and blood; the angelus, ringing far off, Seems an approaching plaintive cry. The wind rises, heavy and warm; a shiver passes And repasses, ever increasing, in the denseness Ever deepening of the tall oaks: it possesses And is dispersed like a miasma into space. Night comes, the owl takes flight. This is the moment When old wives' tales throng into the mind . . . Under a thicket, over there, over there, spring waters Sound like waiting assassins plotting to strike. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS ON TAGORE by MARIANNE MOORE THE INNOVATOR by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET THE CAPTAIN; AFTER READING HENLEY'S INVICTUS by DOROTHEA DAY THE PESSIMIST by BENJAMIN FRANKLIN KING LUCY (5) by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH FRAGMENTS INTENDED FOR DEATH'S JEST-BOOK: MAN'S GUARD AGAINST DEATH by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES THE PESSIMIST by LOUISA SARAH BEVINGTON |