Woodland Peace
by
Sweet as Eden is the air,
And Eden-sweet the ray.
No Paradise is lost for them
Who foot by branching root and stem,
And lightly with the woodland share
The change of night and day.
Here all say,
We serve her, even as I:
We brood, we strive to sky,
We gaze upon decay,
We wot of life through death,
How each feeds each we spy;
And is a tangle round,
Are patient; what is dumb
We question not, nor ask
The silent to give sound,
The hidden to unmask,
The distant to draw near.
And this the woodland saith:
I know not hope or fear;
I take whate’er may come;
I raise my head to aspects fair,
From foul I turn away.
Sweet as Eden is the air,
And Eden-sweet the ray.