Wise are ye, O ancient woods! wiser than man. Whoso goeth in your paths or into your thickets where no paths are, readeth the same cheerful lesson whether he be a young child or a hundred years old. Comes he in good fortune or bad, ye say the same things, & from age to age. Ever the needles of the pine grow & fall, the acorns on the oak, the maples redden in autumn, & at all times of the year the ground pine & the pyrola bud & root under foot. What is called fortune & what is called Time by men -- ye know them not. Men have not language to describe one moment of your eternal life. This I would ask of you, o sacred Woods, when ye shall next give me somewhat to say, give me also the tune wherein to say it. Give me a tune of your own like your winds or rains or brooks or birds; for the songs of men grow old when they have been often repeated, but yours, though a man have heard them for seventy years, are never the same, but always new, like time itself, or like love. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...EPIGRAM ON QUEEN CAROLINE'S DEATHBED by ALEXANDER POPE SYMPHONY IN YELLOW by OSCAR WILDE CRY WOE, WOE, AND LET THE GOOD PREVAIL, FR. AGAMEMNON by AESCHYLUS EVIL EASIER THAN GOOD by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE DEAMON LOVER by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH TO ADOLPHE GAIFFE by THEODORE FAULLAIN DE BANVILLE THE HOUREGLASSE by JOSEPH BEAUMONT |