The Night Forest

Incumbent seemingly         On the jagged points of peaks         That end the visible west,         The rounded moon yet floods         The valleys hitherward         With fall of torrential light,         Ere from the overmost         Aggressive mountain-cusp,         She slip to the lower dark.         But here, on an eastward slope         Pointed and thick with its pine,         The forest scarcely remembers         Her light that is gone as a vision         Or ecstasy too poignant         And perilous for duration.         Withdrawn in what darker web         Or dimension of dream I know not,         In silence pre-occupied         And solemnest rectitude         The pines uprear, and no sigh         For the rapture of moonlight past,         Comes from their bosom of boughs.         Far in their secrecy         I stand, and the burden of dusk         Dull, but at times made keen         With tingle of fragrances,         Falls on me as a veil         Between my soul and the world.         What veil of trance, O pines,         Divides you from my soul,         That I feel but enter not         Your distances of dream?         Ah! strange, imperative sense         Of world-deep mystery         That shakes from out your boughs -         A fragrance yet more keen,         Pressing upon the mind.         The wind shall question you         Of the dream I may not gain,         And all its sombreness         And depth immeasurable,         Shall tremble away in sound         Of speech not understood         That my heart must break to hear.