The Charcoal-Burner
He lives within the hollow wood,
From one clear dell he seldom ranges;
His daily toil in solitude
Revolves, but never changes.
A still old man, with grizzled beard,
Gray eye, bent shape, and smoke-tanned features,
His quiet footstep is not feared
By shyest woodland creatures.
I love to watch the pale blue spire
His scented labour builds above it;
I track the woodland by his fire,
And, seen afar, I love it.
It seems among the serious trees
The emblem of a living pleasure,
It animates the silences
As with a tuneful measure.
And dream not that such humdrum ways
Fold naught of Nature's charm around him;
The mystery of soundless days
Hath sought for him and found him.
He hides within his simple brain
An instinct innocent and holy,
The music of a wood-bird's strain, —
Not blithe, nor melancholy,
But hung upon the calm content
Of wholesome leaf and bough and blossom —
An unecstatic ravishment
Born in a rustic bosom.
He knows the moods of forest things,
He holds, in his own speechless fashion,
For helpless forms of fur and wings
A mild paternal passion.
Within his horny hand he holds
The warm brood of the ruddy squirrel;
Their bushy mother storms and scolds,
But knows no sense of peril.
The dormouse shares his crumb of cheese,
His homeward trudge the rabbits follow;
He finds, in angles of the trees,
The cup nest of the swallow.
And through this sympathy, perchance,
The beating heart of life he reaches
Far more than we who idly dance
An hour beneath the beeches.
Our science and our empty pride,
Our busy dream of introspection,
To God seem vain and poor beside
This dumb, sincere reflection.
Yet he will die unsought, unknown,
A nameless headstone stand above him,
And the vast woodland, vague and lone,
Be all that's left to love him.