Through trees that lean, dark, deep, and high;

And coiled with grape and trailing vine

[Pg 41]

Build a vast roof of shade and shine;

A house of leaves, where shadows walk,

And whispering winds and waters talk.

There is no path. The saplings choke

The trunks they spring from. There an oak

Lies rotting; and that sycamore,

Which lays its bulk from shore to shore,—

Uprooted by the floods,—perchance,

May be the bridge to some romance.

Now opening through a willow fringe

The waters creep, one tawny tinge

Of sunset; and on either marge

The cottonwoods make walls of shade;

And, near, the gradual hills loom large

Within its mirror. Herons wade,

Or fly, like Faery birds, from grass

That mats the shore by which we pass.

 Prev. P 43/126 next