What do I care that the stream is trampled, the sand on the stream-bank still holds the print of your foot: the heel is cut deep. I see another mark on the grass ridge of the bank -- it points toward the wood-path I have lost the third in the packed earth. But here a wild-hyacinth stalk is snapped: the purple buds -- half ripe -- show deep purple where your heel pressed. A patch of flowering grass, low, trailing -- you brushed this: the green stems show yellow-green where you lifted -- turned the earth-side to the light: this and a dead leaf-spine split across, show where you passed. You were swift,swift! here the forest ledge slopes -- rain has furrowed the roots. Your hand caught at this; the root snapped under your weight. I can almost follow the note where it touched this slender tree and the next answered -- and the next. And you climbed yet further! you stopped by the dwarf-cornel -- whirled on your heels, doubled on your track. This is clear -- you fell on the downward slope, you dragged a bruised thigh -- you limped -- you clutched this larch. Did your head, bent back, Search further -- clear through the green leaf-moss of the larch branches? Did you clutch, stammer with short breath and gasp: wood-daemons grant life -- give life -- I am almost lost. For some wood-daemon has lightened your steps. I can find no trace of you in the larch-cones and the underbrush. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PENDULUM by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON ON A VOLUME OF SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY by GEORGE SANTAYANA EMMELINE GRANGERFORD'S 'ODE TO STEPHEN DOLWING BOTS, DEC'D' by SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS THE RELIEF OF LUCKNOW (SEPTEMBER 25, 1857) by ROBERT TRAILL SPENCE LOWELL HALSTED STREET CAR by CARL SANDBURG H. SACRAMENT by JOSEPH BEAUMONT THE WANDERER: 5. IN HOLLAND: ON MY TWENTY-FOURTH YEAR by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON |