The Night Forest

Incumbent seemingly On the serrate points of peaks That end the visible west, The rounded moon yet floods The valleys hitherward With fall of torrential light, Ere from the overmost Dividing mountain-cusp She slip to the lower dark. But here, on an eastward slope Pointed and thick with its pine, The forest scarcely remembers Her light that is gone as a vision Or ecstasy too poignant And perilous for duration. Withdrawn in what darker web Or dimension of dream I know not, in silence pre-occupied And solemnest rectitude, The pines uprear, and no sigh For the rapture of moonlight past Comes from their bosom of boughs. Far in their secrecy I stand, and the burdenous dusk, Dull, but at times made keen With tingle of fragrances, Falls on me as a veil Between my soul and the world. What veil of trance, O pines, Divides you from my soul, That I feel but enter not Your distances of dream ? Ah! strange, imperative sense Of world-deep mystery That shakes from out your boughs— A fragrance keener still, Piercing the inner mind.

The wind shall question you Of the dream I may not gain, And all its somberness And depth immeasurable, Shall tremble away in sound Of speech not understood That my heart must break to hear.