When in forest depths I hear the mourning of the mere, red with the eve that fades, with piercing rushes full rising above the pool, like a heart transfixed with blades, I say: ah! who would come far from his native home, seduced by love's false dream, who could with heart unbowed enter this gloomy wood without a pain extreme? Yet someone's drawing near. 'Neath the alder-grove I hear a man in the shadows trail dolorous tarn, towards thee! He is in extremity, phantom rancourless and pale. Call, pool of forests dim, pool where the wild ducks swim, man and night come tardily toward thy surface so morose where the tawny pinion glows of the sunset slow to die . . . The stag bellows wearily, and suddenly doth flee, a dog howls in the distant plain. The owl, in the underwood, shivers, eyes closed, and toward the rising moon doth sigh. Welcome, O dolorous pool, this being sorrowful who comes to drown his pain nor could with careless mien enter this gloomy wood were he not in woe supreme, did not Death his soul invite, through melancholy's blight, to forsake this world . . . 'tis I. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MY LAST DUCHESS; FERRRA by ROBERT BROWNING THE AEOLIAN HARP by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE THE RHODORA: ON BEING ASKED, WHENCE IS THE FLOWER? by RALPH WALDO EMERSON AN EGYPTIAN PULLED GLASS BOTTLE IN THE SHAPE OF A FISH by MARIANNE MOORE VERLAINE by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON |