SOLITUDE

   How still it is here in the woods. The trees

    Stand motionless, as if they did not dare
    To stir, lest it should break the spell. The air
    Hangs quiet as spaces in a marble frieze.
    Even this little brook, that runs at ease,
   Whispering and gurgling in its knotted bed,
   Seems but to deepen with its curling thread
   Of sound the shadowy sun-pierced silences.

  Sometimes a hawk screams or a woodpecker
  Startles the stillness from its fixed mood
  With his loud careless tap. Sometimes I hear
  The dreamy white-throat from some far-off tree
  Pipe slowly on the listening solitude
  His five pure notes succeeding pensively.

  Archibald Lampman