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.