  From off the traveled road that lay Between wide fields of wheat and corn, An old gate, gray and weather-worn, Led down a shady woodland way. One scarce might trace the narrow path, So green it was and overgrown With springtime’s seeded aftermath; Tall grasses that had never known The mower’s scythe or sickle’s scath, And rosy mayweed lightly sown Where’er the summer winds had blown; And all their tangled stems the red Sweet clover blossoms overspread. Near by, through scented, leafy veils Of wreathing vines, and dewy, dense Green underwood, a brood of quails Sped swiftly past the ragged rails That tilted off a mossy fence; And over it, on airy wing, A robin paused in glad content Where budding elder-bushes leant And brambles clambered flowering. Rose, faintly quivering on the breeze, And all that blossom-studded ground Seemed charged with murmurous mysteries! As if all rarest forest keys In dreamful chords divinely blent, Sang forth from some sweet instrument; While pulsing through, with rhythmic beat, In slumberous melodies there went The soft susurrus of the trees, The wind that wandered through the wheat, And all the changeful strains of these. And as I listened, marveling Where those light, liquid tones might be, Forgetting all and everything Save that enchanting minstrelsy, I wandered slowly through the wood, Till all at once the parted green Revealed its secret, for I stood Upon the verge of a ravine Wherein the sunbeams broke between Tall rustling hemlock boughs, and bright As burnished silver in the light, A tiny stream ran tinkling through, While hidden somewhere out of sight, A little spring made music, too. The shining water slipped and slipped Adown the mossy rocks, and dripped From off fine fringing ferns, in drops Of endless threaded pearls that tipped The tasseled sedge and alder tops A drowsy draught of sun, and dipped Beneath small clustering buds, and hid Among lush marigolds, and slid Between tall serried ranks of reeds, And stroked their little leaves and lipped The flower-spangled jewel-weeds; Then, speeding suddenly amid Faint shimmering spray, it lightly tripped Across white pebbly sand, and stripped The marsh flowers’ gold, and fled, half seen, A splash of silver through the green. And all the while that music sweet Kept softly murmuring at my feet, As down the rocks in ceaseless streams The limpid cascades poured, and still The slumberous light in yellow beams Bathed the green hemlock boughs,—until I seemed to lose all waking will, And all my soul was lulled to dreams; Wherethrough there floated, drowsy-wise, Bright glints of bird-wings, gracious gleams Of tender, sunlit summer skies, And fleet, sweet visions of the rare Deep, shadowy hearts the forests bear.
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