IN THE FOREST.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20564, 4 June 1932, Page 13

IN THE FOREST.

Think you not, lone traveller, for an hour withdrawn From that hot argument by human commerce bred, Think you not the innermost forest hatli foreknown The whole narrative of (he heart's competence, and need? Where every bough wears drapery oC woe, the weeds Weeping slow rain silently; where every leaf Turns to a tear, and remote light, tearrefieeted, goads . The groundling grasses to ascend their stemmy if)of And riot in the reddened heaven above the gloom— Melodious gloom, where every tear, turned flute, Plaintive or jubilant, alike with lieet*ing gleam 111 to the liquid shadow plashes a pure note. Though every depth of verdurous shade deny the sun, And every shaft of gilt sun deepen the cold shades, And every smallest sound, the stillness to adorn •With contradiction, stir, harmonious abides The forest solitude; . . . think you not, traveller, then, That this linked light and darkness, laughter and grief, Forecast the consciousness of microcosm • man, The tuned antinomies of his mysterious life? Howbeit, dreaming', having in greefiness dwelt, And silences, enough to slake your drought, See your opaque dream melt into thousand cells, Those cells distil to one primeval well Unplumbed, to dark cloud of nn- ' fathomed thought, Whence shall the Thinker fabric what He will. —E.H. Waiho .Gorge, March, 1932.