The secret of the woods lies close,
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Behind a thousand leafy doors;
The mountain laurel and the rose
Make fair the winding corridors
Through which my frequent footstep goes
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Along the velvet mossy floors;
The rustling arras swings aside,
And swings behind me, as I fare;
But still the woods their secret hide.
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Yet is it whispered everywhere,
And every creature there, save I,
Knows it by heart: the bee could tell,
Had it a mind; the butterfly
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Floats with it painted on its wings;
Even the woodchuck knows it well,
And nothing else the cat-bird sings.
Would I were as these soul-less things,
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These beings of the element,
Soul-less, yet all of spirit blent,
Wild essences of fire and dew—
Then had mine ears been more attent,
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And I had known the secret too.