Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IN THE WOOD, by PAUL FORT


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN THE WOOD, by                    
First Line: A brooklet flows beneath the vaulted wood
Last Line: A brooklet flows beneath the vaulted wood.
Subject(s): Forests; Grief; Nature; Woods; Sorrow; Sadness


A brooklet flows beneath the vaulted wood.

Between the mosses emerald pale, lianas frail pursue its song, others enshroud
its bed with shadows moist and blue; a dead birch huddles on its bank; the
scarab beetles o'er it skim. Fallen birch leaves, tinged with red, choke that
channel dank and dim. Among the mosses a wild and lonely thought fixes my dream
with its minute regard. . . .

Why, O my God, should things that are so small (a brooklet flows beneath the
vaulted wood) with their little life of moving shadow call this horrible despair
to dusk my mood? -- Is it because of this monotonous song of a current almost
stifled in its bed, or of these things that seem a phantom throng, their sleep
with endless sorrow overspread, is it because of life that is so brief, thinking
how strait and narrow is our world, that I should see no cause for death's
reprieve, nor any reason why mankind was born, save that beyond the border of
the wood, like some clear beacon-fire by Nature set, like a summons of this
world to light and joy, there shines the vivid green of growing corn?

A brooklet flows beneath the vaulted wood.





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