Minions of the moon / by Madison Cawein [electronic text]

THE FOREST OF OLD ENCHANTMENT

SQUAW-BERRY, bramble, Solomon's-seal, And rattlesnake-weed make wild the place: You seem to feel that a Faun will steal Or leap before your face. . . . Is that the reel of a Satyr's heel, Or the brook in its headlong race?

Yellow puccoon and the blue-eyed grass, And briars a riot of bloom: And now from the mass of that sassafras What is it shakes perfume?— A Nymph, who has for her looking-glass That pool in the mossy gloom?

Mile on mile of the trees and vines, And rock and fern and root: What is it pines where the wild-grape twines? A dove? or Pan's own flute? — And there! —what shines into rosy lines? A flower? or Dryad's foot?

White-plantain, bluet, and, golden-clear, The crowfoot's earth-bound star: Now what draws near to the spirit ear? — A god? or a sunbeam-bar? — And what do we hear with a sense of fear? — Diana? or winds afar?

If we but thought as the old Greeks thought, And knew what the ancients knew, Then Beauty sought of the soul were caught And breathed into being too: And' out of naught were the real wrought, And the dream of the world made true.