A Forest Nook - An 1841 Poem
By Alfred B. Street. Albany, July, 1841. From the Northern Light.
- A nook within the forest; overhead
- The branches arch, and shape a pleasant bower,
- Breaking white cloud, blue sky and sunshine bright
- Into pure ivory and sapphire spots
- And flecks of gold; a soft cool emerald tint
- Colors the air, as though the delicate leaves
- Emitted self-born light. What splendid walls,
- And what a gorgeous roof carved by the hand
- Of glorious Nature! Here the spruce thrusts in
- Its bristling plume tipped with its pale-green points,
- The hemlock shows its borders freshly fringed,
- The smoothly scallop'd beech-leaf, and the birch
- Cut into ragged edges, interlace.
- While here and there, thro' clefts, the laurel hangs
- Its gorgeous chalices half brimm'd with dew,
- As though to hoard it for the haunting elves
- The moonlight calls to this their festal hall.
- A thick rich grassy carpet clothes the earth
- Sprinkled with autumn leaves. The fern displays
- Its fluted wreath beaded beneath with drops
- Of richest brown; the wild-rose spreads its breast
- Of delicate pink, and the overhanging fir
- Has dropped its dark long cone.
-
- The scorching glare
- Without, makes this green nest a grateful haunt
- For summer's radiant things; the butterfly
- Fluttering within and nesting on some flower
- Fans his rich velvet form; the toiling bee
- Shoots by, with sounding hum and mist-like wings;
- The robin perches on the bending spray
- With shrill quick chirp; and like a flake of fire
- The red-bird seeks the shelter of the leaves
- And now and then a flutter overhead
- In the thick green betrays some wandering wing
- Coming and going, yet concealed from sight.
- A shrill loud outcry on yon highest bough
- Sits the grey-squirrel in his burlesque-wrath
- Stamping and chattering fiercely : now he drops
- A hoarded nut, then at my smiling gaze
- Buries himself within the foliage.
- The insect tribes are here : the ant toils on
- With his grain burthen; in his netted web
- Gray glistening o'er the bush, the spider lurks
- A close-crouch'd ball, out darting as a hum
- Tells his trapp'd prey, and looping quick his threads
- Chains into helplessness the bussing wings.
- The wood-tick taps his tiny muffled drum
- To the shrill cricket-fife, and swelling loud,
- The grasshopper his grating bugle winds.
- Those breaths of Nature, the light fluttering airs
- Like gentle respirations, come and go,
- Lift on its crimson stem the maple leaf
- Displaying its white lining underneath,
- And sprinkle from the tree-tops golden rain
- Of sunshine on the velvet sward below.
- Such nooks as this are common in the woods,
- And all these sights and sounds the commonest
- In Nature when she wears her summer prime.
- Yet by them pass not lightly : to the wise
- They tell the beauty and harmony
- Of e'en the lowliest things that God hath made.
- That this familiar earth and sky are full
- Of his ineffable Power and majesty.
- That in the humble objects, see too oft
- To be regarded, is such wondrous grace,
- The art of man is vain to imitate.
- That the low flower our careless foot treads down
- Is a rich shrine of incense delicate,
- And radiant beauty, and that God hath form'd
- All, from the mountain wreathing round its brow
- The black ears of thunder, to the grain
- Of silver sand bubbling spring casts up,
- With deepest forethought and severest care.
- And thus these noteless lowly things are types
- Of His perfection and divinity.
August 5, 1841. Pittsfield Sun 41(2133): 1.