Poetry Archives

How still it is here in the woods. The trees
  Stand motionless, as if they did not dare
  To stir, lest it should break the spell. The air
Hangs quiet as spaces in a marble frieze.
Even this little brook, that runs at ease,
  Whispering and gurgling in its knotted bed,
  Seems but to deepen with its curling thread
Of sound the shadowy sun-pierced silences.

Sometimes a hawk screams or a woodpecker
  Startles the stillness from its fixed mood
With his loud careless tap. Sometimes I hear
    The dreamy white-throat from some far-off tree
  Pipe slowly on the listening solitude
    His five pure notes succeeding pensively.