YOUTH

 
  1. Burzee

    Have you
          heard of
               the great Forest of Burzee?

    Nurse used
          to sing of it
         when I was a child.

    She sang
           of the big tree-trunks,
         standing close together,
         with their roots intertwining
               below the earth
                   and their branches intertwining
               above it;
        of their rough
              coating of bark and queer,
           gnarled limbs;
        of the bushy foliage
             that roofed the entire forest,
           save where the sunbeams
              found a path
             through which
                  to touch the ground
                       in little spots
                      and to cast weird
                           and curious shadows
                         over the mosses,
         the lichens
               and the drifts
                   of dried leaves.

    The Forest of Burzee
        is mighty
               and grand and awesome
             to those
         who steal beneath its shade.

    Coming from the sunlit meadows
           into its mazes it
        seems at first gloomy,
           then pleasant,
         and afterward
              filled with never-ending delights.

    For hundreds of years it
        has flourished
               in all its magnificence,
           the silence
               of its inclosure unbroken save
             by the chirp
                   of busy chipmunks,
         the growl of wild beasts
               and the songs of birds.

    Yet Burzee has its inhabitants
          --for all this.

    Nature peopled it
           in the beginning
         with Fairies,
           Knooks,
         Ryls and Nymphs.

    As long
           as the Forest stands
         it will be a home,
           a refuge and a playground
               to these sweet immortals,
         who revel undisturbed
               in its depths.

    Civilization has never yet
          reached Burzee.

    Will it ever,
           I wonder?

 
  2. The Child of the Forest

    Once,
           so long ago our great-grandfathers
            could scarcely
                  have heard it mentioned,
         there lived
               within the great Forest
                   of Burzee a wood-nymph
              named Necile.

    She was closely
          related to
               the mighty Queen Zurline,
           and her home
            was beneath the shade
                   of a widespreading oak.

    Once every year,
           on Budding Day,
         when the trees
              put forth their new buds,
           Necile held the Golden Chalice
               of Ak
             to the lips
                   of the Queen,
         who drank therefrom
               to the prosperity
                   of the Forest.

    So you see
         she was a nymph of
               some importance,
           and,
         moreover,
           it is said
             she was highly regarded
               because of
                   her beauty and grace.

    When she was created
         she could not have told;
        Queen Zurline
            could not have told;
        the great Ak himself
            could not have told.

    It was long ago
         when the world
            was new and nymphs
                were needed
                      to guard the forests
                          and to minister
                               to the wants
                                   of the young trees.

    Then,
           on some day not remembered,
         Necile sprang into being;
        radiant,
           lovely,
         straight and slim
               as the sapling
             she was created to guard.

    Her hair was the color
         that lines a chestnut-bur;
        her eyes
            were blue
                   in the sunlight and purple
                 in the shade;
        her cheeks
              bloomed with the faint pink
             that edges the clouds
                   at sunset;
        her lips were full red,
           pouting and sweet.

    For costume
         she adopted oak-leaf green;
        all the wood-nymphs dress in
             that color
                  and know
                       no other so desirable.

    Her dainty feet were sandal-clad,
           while her head remained
             bare of covering
                   other than her silken tresses.

    Necile's duties
        were few and simple.

    She kept hurtful weeds
           from growing
         beneath her trees and
          sapping the earth-food
              required by her charges.

    She frightened away the Gadgols,
           who took evil delight
               in flying
             against the tree-trunks and
              wounding them
             so that
                 they drooped
                    and died
                           from the poisonous contact.