The Night Forest

    Incumbent seemingly
    On the jagged 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
    Aggressive 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    Withdrawn in what darker web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 burden of 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 yet more keen,
    Pressing upon the mind.

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