A Woodland Dreamer

In haunts my roving boyhood knew
A lover of the wildwood grew.
He walked, as one who walked alone,
The busy world unknowing, unknown;
He walked, as one companioned well,
The silent wood and secret dell.
His heart, love-free, or only bound
To beauty he alone had found,
Went forth in solitude to greet
The slenderest blossom at his feet;
And all the spy wood-flowers, that look
From rifted ledge and mossy nook, 
Were dial-hands of time and change
Who crossed the rushing rivers of the rain
Through all the unfrozen moons that range, 
From pale arbutus, hidden low
By drifted leaves and April snow,
Prismatle chords in glorious unison
To the last bloom on leafless gray—
The weird witch-hazel's yellow spray.

Boon Nature's solitary child,
His wooing was of free and wild:
He loved the little violet;
The ocean was his lion pet,
That, left behind, gave long regret; 
The rainbow’s dying aureole
Lived on, immortal, in his soul;
Dim mountains in the purple north, 
That drew his weary feel far forth;
Filled the red iron in his blood
With strong, magnetic brotherhood.
His were the blasted trunks flint stood, 
Far hidden, in the trackless wood, 
Displaying proudly, as he came.
The lightning's autograph of flame.
The little madcap "Stony Run,"
Loping from mossy log and stone, 
Dancing and laughing all the way, 
Went with him to keep holiday, 
Nor ever marred his gravest thought, 
But round it golden vignettes wrought.

Tall rooks, with overhanging trees, 
Gave cool beds on their mossy knees, 
Where all a summer's day, in shade 
By gnarled oak and chestnut made, 
He rooted grew, as savins grow, 
And through him felt the wood-sap flow,
Yet heard the locust piping shrill
When noon ??? slept, ??? ??? still.
While partridge answered with her drum
The nearer wild bee’s drowsy hum
On purple wings the dragon-fly
Hither and thither darting by,
With his long needle seemed to darn
The ravelled shadows of the ???.
The nimble squirrel overhead,
With flickering plume above him spread.
Looked down, and with a saucy air
Scolded the lingering dreamer there,
Who smiled and softly answered:
                         “Ho!
My little vixen, chide not so;
The world is large, and you and I
Are nurslings of the same good sky;
We are not rivals for the love
Of any sweet in field or grove;
Spirits of runnel, rock and tree—
My nymphs—your keen eyes cannot see;
The fruits I gather leave no loss
In all the lavish wilderness;
The burs that open to the sun
Their velvet linings, gold and dun,
With tawny nuts, are yours and mind
By differing rights, and both divine—
Yours once by hunger’s sacred claim
Forever mine in beauty’s name.
I bring no weapons of the chase,
No slaughter to this holy place,
Where you and I alike may share
The luxury of the common air.
Load full your cheeks, and laugh and leap.
And pile your brown nuts’ hidden heap
To feed your babies, nestled warm
In their high cradle, rocked by storm;
We shall not crowd; play out your play,
I’ll dream my dreams and sing my lay.”

So was there peace between the two;
And to such confidence they grew
With them was never secret more
Of love untold or hidden store,
She ran her merry chases fleet,
And he, with liberated tongue,
His inmost aspirations sung.