Page:Edgar Allan Poe - how to know him.djvu/123

Rh The twilight of the trees and rocks Is in the light shade of thy locks, Thy step is as the wind that weaves Its playful way among the leaves.

Thine eyes are springs, in whose serene And silent waters Heaven is seen; Their lashes are the herbs that look On their young figures in the brook.

The forest depths by foot impressed Are not more sinless than thy breast; The holy peace that fills the air Of those calm solitudes, is there.

A rich simplicity is a main feature in this poem—simplicity of design and execution. This is strikingly perceptible in the opening and concluding lines, and in expression throughout. But there is a far higher and more strictly ideal beauty, which it is less easy to analyze. The original conception is of the very loftiest order of true Poesy. A maiden is born in the forest—

She is not merely modelled in character by the association of her childhood—this were the thought of an ordinary poet—an idea that we meet with every day in rhyme—but she imbibes, in her physical as well as moral being, the traits, the very features of the delicious scenery around her—its loveliness becomes a portion of her own—

The twilight of the trees and rocks Is in the light shade of her locks, And all the beauty of the place Is in her heart and on her face.

It would have been a highly poetical idea to imagine the tints in the locks of the maiden deducing a