Command

COME to the forest, O step softly
Where the doe in the fern has slept.
Leave, O leave the shining fields
And the wind on water;
Wind in the pine has a water-sound,
Foam in the sheaves of shadow.

Come to the forest, O divide its sleeping
Into the dreams of the ancient beeches,
Gray dreams, sea dreams,
Waving anemones rooted in coral
In the shadow-deep pool of moss and bracken.
Fold your empty arms on the wind:
Darkness and shelter
Are your love and your breathing,
Hemlock drift your sleeping,
Sea-anemone in silence swaying,
Night-fire, dawn-fire, your dreaming.

Gather up the underbrush,
Break the fallen boughs on your knee,
Blow on the birch-bark, O blow softly.
Not a tree shall crash to your axe,
Not a green living branch to your fire;
Can a man cut the sound of water
Running through the sun-shed pines,
Can a man take foam for his flame?

Come to the forest, O step softly
Where the doe in the fern has stepped.
Turn, O turn from the corn and the wheat-field,
Turn to the wind in running leaf-water.
Wind in the pine spills a fountain of light,
Wind in the pine has a water-sound,
Foam in the hollows of shadow.