| |
| .. AND 1 so this man returned with axe and saw | |
| At evening close from killing the tall treen, | |
| The soul of whom by nature’s gentle law | |
| Was each a wood-nymph, and kept ever green | |
| The pavement and the roof of the wild copse, | 5 |
| Chequering the sunlight of the blue serene | |
| With jaggèd leaves,—and from the forest tops | |
| Singing the winds to sleep—or weeping oft | |
| Fast showers of aëreal water drops | |
| Into their mother’s bosom, sweet and soft, | 10 |
| Nature’s pure tears which have no bitterness;— | |
| Around the cradles of the birds aloft | |
| They spread themselves into the loveliness | |
| Of fan-like leaves, and over pallid flowers | |
| Hang like moist clouds:—or, where high branches kiss, | 15 |
| Make a green space among the silent bowers, | |
| Like a vast fane in a metropolis, | |
| Surrounded by the columns and the towers | |
| All overwrought with branch-like traceries | |
| In which there is religion—and the mute | 20 |
| Persuasion of unkindled melodies, | |
| Odours and gleams and murmurs … | |
| |
| The world is full of Woodmen who expel | |
| Love’s gentle Dryads from the haunts of life, | |
| And vex the nightingales in every dell. | 25 |
