YON woodland, like a human mind, Hath many a phase of dark and bright: Now dim with shadows, wandering blind, Now radiant with fair shapes of light. They softly come, they softly go, Capricious as the vagrant wind, Nature's vague thoughts in gloom or glow, That leave no airiest trace behind. No trace, no trace! yet wherefore thus Do shade and beam our spirit's stir? Ah! Nature may be cold to us, But we are strangely moved by her. The wild bird's strain, the breezy spray, Each hour with sure earth-changes rife Hint more than all the sages say, Or poets sing of death and life. For truths half drawn from Nature's breast, Through subtlest types of form and tone, Outweigh what man, at most, hath guessed While heeding his own heart alone. And midway, betwixt heaven and us, Stands Nature in her fadeless grace, Still pointing to our Father's house, His glory on her mystic face. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SINGER OF ONE SONG by HENRY AUGUSTIN BEERS AN ANATOMY OF THE WORLD: THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY by JOHN DONNE THE CROSS OF SNOW by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW IMPRESSIONS: LES SILHOUETTES by OSCAR WILDE NIOBE: THE GODS' CHILDREN by AESCHYLUS A SOCIETY MARTYR by JOHN CLINTON ANTHONY BOUTS RIMES IN PRAISE OF OLD MAIDS by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD INSCRIPTIONS FOR A SEAT BY THE ROAD SIDE HALF-WAY UP A STEEP HILL by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE TO HIS MUCH HONOURED GODFATHER, MASTER A. B. by ABRAHAM COWLEY |