We wander'd to the Pine Forest

That skirts the Ocean's foam;
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.

The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the bosom of the deep
The smile of Heaven lay;

It seem'd as if the hour were one

Sent from beyond the skies
Which scatter'd from above the sun
A light of Paradise!

We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,

Tortured by storms to shape as rude
As serpents interlaced,

And soothed by every azure breath
That under heaven is blown
To harmonies and hues beneath,
As tender as its own:

Now all the tree-tops lay asleep
Like green waves on the sea,
As still as in the silent deep
The ocean-woods may be.

How calm it was! the silence there

But such a chain was bound,

That even the busy woodpecker
Made stiller by her sound

The inviolable quietness;

The breath of peace we drew

With its soft motion made not less
The calm that round us grew.

There seem'd, from the remotest seat
Of the wide mountain waste

To the soft flower beneath our feet

A magic circle traced,
A spirit interfused around,

A thrilling silent life;

To momentary peace it bound

Our mortal nature's strife; And still I felt the centre of

The magic circle there

Was one fair Form that fill'd with love The lifeless atmosphere.

We paused beside the pools that lie

Under the forest bough;

Each seem'd as 't were a little sky
Gulf'd in a world below;
A firmament of purple light

Which in the dark earth lay,

More boundless than the depth of night

And purer than the day

In which the lovely forests grew

As in the upper air,

More perfect both in shape and hue

Than any spreading there.

There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn,

And through the dark-green wood

The white sun twinkling like the dawn

Out of a speckled cloud.

Sweet views which in our world above

Can never well be seen

Were imaged by the water's love

Of that fair forest green: And all was interfused beneath

With an Elysian glow,

An atmosphere without a breath,

A softer day below.

Like one beloved, the scene had lent