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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
IN THE WOODS, by PAUL VERLAINE Poem Explanation Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Other people - innocents or lunatics / find in the woods only pallid charms Last Line: Sound like waiting assassins plotting to strike. Subject(s): Fear; Forests; Night; Woods; Bedtime | |||
Other people -- innocents or lunatics -- Find in the woods only pallid charms, Fresh breezes and warm scents. They are fortunate! Others, dreamers, are seized with mystic dread. They are fortunate! While I, nervous, maddened By a vague, terrifying, and relentless remorse, Tremble in the forest: I am like a coward Who fears an ambush or thinks he sees a corpse. These huge branches, ever restless as the sea, Whence dark silence falls with shadows yet Darker: all this dim, sinister scenery Fills me with horror at once trivial and profound. The worst are summer evenings: the red of sunset Dissolves into gray-blue mists, which it dyes With fire and blood; the angelus, ringing far off, Seems an approaching plaintive cry. The wind rises, heavy and warm; a shiver passes And repasses, ever increasing, in the denseness Ever deepening of the tall oaks: it possesses And is dispersed like a miasma into space. Night comes, the owl takes flight. This is the moment When old wives' tales throng into the mind . . . Under a thicket, over there, over there, spring waters Sound like waiting assassins plotting to strike. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BREATH OF NIGHT by RANDALL JARRELL HOODED NIGHT by ROBINSON JEFFERS NIGHT WITHOUT SLEEP by ROBINSON JEFFERS WORKING OUTSIDE AT NIGHT by DENIS JOHNSON POEM TO TAKE BACK THE NIGHT by JUNE JORDAN COOL DARK ODE by DONALD JUSTICE POEM TO BE READ AT 3 A.M by DONALD JUSTICE ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT by BOB KAUFMAN A FORGOTTEN TUNE by PAUL VERLAINE |
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