Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth. George Meredith

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      THE WOODS OF WESTERMAIN.

       Table of Contents

      I.

      Enter these enchanted woods,

      You who dare.

       Nothing harms beneath the leaves

       More than waves a swimmer cleaves.

       Toss your heart up with the lark,

       Foot at peace with mouse and worm,

      Fair you fare.

       Only at a dread of dark

       Quaver, and they quit their form:

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      Thousand eyeballs under hoods

      Have you by the hair.

       Enter these enchanted woods,

      You who dare.

      II.

       Here the snake across your path

       Stretches in his golden bath:

       Mossy-footed squirrels leap

       Soft as winnowing plumes of Sleep:

       Yaffles on a chuckle skim

       Low to laugh from branches dim:

       Up the pine, where sits the star,

       Rattles deep the moth-winged jar.

       Each has business of his own;

       But should you distrust a tone,

      Then beware.

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      Shudder all the haunted roods,

       All the eyeballs under hoods

      Shroud you in their glare.

       Enter these enchanted woods,

      You who dare.

      III.

      Open hither, open hence,

       Scarce a bramble weaves a fence,

       Where the strawberry runs red,

       With white star-flower overhead;

       Cumbered by dry twig and cone,

       Shredded husks of seedlings flown,

       Mine of mole and spotted flint:

       Of dire wizardry no hint,

       Save mayhap the print that shows

       Hasty outward-tripping toes,

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      Heels