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The Forest Of Old Enchantment

Topics: classic

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.

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"Squaw-Berry, bramble, Solomon's-seal,..."

Madison Julius Cawein's contribution to classic is further solidified by the brilliance found in "The Forest Of Old Enchantment"... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

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"I saw the daughters of the ocean dance     With wi..."

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