His was the gentle spirit of the woods, The genius of the tongueless mysteries, Eternally that dwell within the trees,

The flowers, the grasses, and the bursting buds;

A member of their secret brotherhoods, He caught the everlasting sympathies Of all the lute-lipped leaves; he held the keys

Of nature's variant moods and solitudes. A Druid gray, his loving life-blood leapt

In transport tremulous, beneath the power Of beauty and of symmetry that slept

Within the petals of the frailest flower; Noblest of all the songless bards, he kept

His great soul stainless in his Eden-bower.