O ’tis sweet, ’tis sweet to wander in the greensward-paven
alleys,
With the laden boughs above us, and the moss-clad trunks
around,
Or to lie and dream with Nature mid the fern-clad hills and
valleys,
In a harmony of silence far surpassing sweetest sound.
O the woodlands, O the woodlands, O the sweet and shady
places,
Lone romantic hollows haunted by the wild bird and the bee;
Ye may gaze for hours together on the sweet upturnéd faces
Of the flowers, whose gentle smiling it is almost heaven to see.
And they smile upon you ever with the pure and holy smiling
Of their lovely human sisterhood, and ever as you pass
Look up to you beseechingly, as though they were beguiling
You to take your seat beside them on the warm and sunny
grass.
And think you they will answer if with gentle words ye woo
them?
O trust me they have voices sweet as any singing bird,
But they speak to those who love them, and who lean their
souls unto them;
And by such, and by such only, are their gentle voices heard.
They will tell you tales of fairy-bands that come and dance
around them,
And sing them songs of joyance through the livelong summer
night,
Tracing circles in the greensward when the quiet moon hath
bound them
In the mystery of beauty with a veil of silver light.
And the merry, merry streamlet, as it plays amid the pebbles,
Chiming in with happy chorus to the wild birds’ sunny song,
With its softly murmur’d tenor, and its liquid-trilling trebles,
Makes the woodland ring with music as its light waves dance
along.
Ye may almost dare to fancy that ye will behold the issue
Of some naiad from the waters with her eyes of liquid blue,
With rounded form of beauty, and with lips of vermeil tissue,
Sent expressly by the Muses to hold converse sweet with you.
Or, if graver mood be on you, from the antique trunks all
hoary,
Ye may list for dryad-voices with their sad and solemn strain,
Bewailing to the passing winds their far and faded glory,
And lamenting days departed which may never come again.
O, to couch on beds of violets, in a foliage-curtained pleas-
aunce,
There to feast upon their beauty, and to breathe their sweet
perfume,
Meet to be inhal’d by angels so etherial is its essence,
Whilst they are meet for angel’s gaze, so holy is their bloom;
’Twere a joy almost too blissful for mere mortal to inherit;
Yet a simple joy, and Nature hath a thousand such in store
For all those who woo her beauties with a pure and constant
spirit,
And for every fresh revealing, love those gentle beauties more.
Yes, to live mid leafy shadows, and to note the hours flit by us
By the sunbeams on the foliage, were a happy life to lead,
And a life according sweetly with the pure and natural bias
Of some hearts devote to Nature, and well-skilled her lore to
read.
But the world hath claims upon us, and our social duties ever
Call us forth to crowded cities there to jostle with the throng;
Yet methinks it were much happier to depart from Nature never,
But to dwell amid the wild woods, and to pass our life in song.