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Underneath the Bough: A Book of Verses cover

Underneath the Bough: A Book of Verses

Chapter 35: The Great Woods Were Awakening.
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About This Book

A collection of verse that shifts between brisk depictions of modern life—motor races and city heat—and intimate lyrical sonnets exploring love, memory, and devotional longing. Classical and medieval references recur alongside pagan pastoral fantasies that imagine escape to woodland Hesperides, while formal experiments include songs, sonnets, ballades, rondeaux and a pantoum. A seasonal sequence maps moods across spring to winter, and a concluding suite treats mortality through elegy and dark humor. The poems balance energetic narrative scenes with reflective, sometimes elegiac meditations on desire, nature, and death.

The Great Woods Were Awakening.

“Les grands bois s’éveillaient; il faisait jour à peine...”

Pradel.

THE great woods were awakening. A new day
Was freshly born; enchanted birds among
The clear green foliage raised their matin song
To praise the morning-glow. Thought-sad I lay
Beneath a gnarlèd oak; despite that gay
Fresh springtide, all my soul was suffering.
I waited her, and lo! the rapid wing
Of fluttering footsteps brushed the dew away.
Drunken with pleasure in a long-locked kiss
Our breath enmingled. Tightening in my arms
That beautiful, supple form, her heart’s alarms
I stifled on my heart. The thicket drew
Close over us, the sun grew dark, I wis,
Earth faded, Heaven opened to our view...