YON woodland, like a human mind,
Hath many a phase of dark and bright:
Now dim with shadows, wandering blind,
Now radiant with fair shapes of light.
They softly come, they softly go,
Capricious as the vagrant wind,
Nature's vague thoughts in gloom or glow,
That leave no airiest trace behind.
No trace, no trace! yet wherefore thus
Do shade and beam our spirit's stir?
Ah! Nature may be cold to us,
But we are strangely moved by her.
The wild bird's strain, the breezy spray,
Each hour with sure earth-changes rife
Hint more than all the sages say,
Or poets sing of death and life.
For truths half drawn from Nature's breast,
Through subtlest types of form and tone,
Outweigh what man, at most, hath guessed
While heeding his own heart alone.
And midway, betwixt heaven and us,
Stands Nature in her fadeless grace,
Still pointing to our Father's house,
His glory on her mystic face.
