Espied

In Harden Woods-Yorkshire

Soft-footed, and with mind aware,

O'er mould with ancient beechmast strewed,

Where, shadowed, leaned the listening air,

I stole into the serious wood.

A stoat stood, fixed in still surprise

(The outer world grew less and less).

A shrewmouse, hunched on passive thighs,

Blinked faintly in the quietness.

I seemed to hear the pulsing toad

Breathe, crouching on the mossy ground.

Across a pool a shadow strode,

It seemed to make a filmy sound.

So glassy still was all, the eye

Felt each shy movement like a noise:

O'er creaking grass an ant crept by;

Rustled the web at the spider's poise.

No grave breath in that conscious place

Moved a frail leaf; yet quiet stirred

Like silence in a poet's face

When all is felt and nothing heard.

From lone gray cloud and brooding air

The quiet soaked me, mind and bone.

Merged in that meaning muteness there,

I leaned against a breathless stone,

And listened, and felt. Till, startling me,

The couchant landscape poised to spring;

Clouds burned to brightness: suddenly

That mild wood was a passionate thing!

A burst of glory split the sky;

Trees doffed their modest shade and sprang

Forward as with a phantom cry,

While tense sight leapt, and taut nerves sang.

From flying gloom before, behind,

Fleet ardors to a bright embrace

Sped forth, and with one tingling mind

Rapt earth and heaven leapt face to face.

There was no sound; yet, in eclipse

Of thought, my thrilled enthralled heart knew

The meeting of a myriad lips,

The passionate green, the passionate blue!

That sylvan rapture stung my soul-

I shared a Dionysian bliss:

Earth locked with heaven, one tremulous whole,

Clung in the abandon of a kiss.

While tiptoe stood my peering brain,

With ardent foot the spell I broke.

Grieved was the ground with sudden pain,

The nervous stillness, frightened, spoke;

Scared gesturing boughs, protesting, threw

Their wizard angers round the wood;

Stark lights and vivid shadows flew

Winged through the sound-shocked solitude.

Then instantly, like love surprised

That, startled, turns from ecstasy,

Nature, aloof, aroused, disguised,

Stepped gravely back and stared at me.

Blood rushed through heart and brain; no more

The stoat stood passive, foot in air:

The trancéd toad leapt, the squirrel swore;

Life spoke and startled everywhere.

Swift like a bright-maned lion sprang

The wind, and, scattering silence, hurled

From far the cry, the lusty clang

And challenge of the temporal world!