The Wood

I walked a nut-wood’s gloom. And overhead A pigeon’s wing beat on the hidden boughs, And shrews upon shy tunnelling woke thin Late winter leaves with trickling sound. Across My narrow path I saw the carrier ants Burdened with little pieces of bright straw. These things I heard and saw, with senses fine For all the little traffic of the wood, While everywhere, above me, underfoot, And haunting every avenue of leaves, Was mystery, unresting, taciturn.

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And haunting the lucidities of life That are my daily beauty, moves a theme, Beating along my undiscovered mind.