I had withdrawn in forest, and my song
Was swallowed up in leaves that blew alway;
And to the forest edge you came one day
(This was my dream) and looked and pondered long,
But did not enter, though the wish was strong:
You shook your pensive head as who should say,
‘I dare not—too far in his footsteps stray—
He must seek me would he undo the wrong.
Not far, but near, I stood and saw it all
Behind low boughs the trees let down outside;
And the sweet pang it cost me not to call
And tell you that I saw does still abide.
But 'tis not true that thus I dwelt aloof,
For the wood wakes, and you are here for proof.
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about a dream so real it woke him
From guest sam (contact)
i think it might mean the poet was dreaming (wood metaphor) and in the dream was confronted by a wrong he'd done to his lover, and her grievance felt so real "the sweet pang it cost me...does still abide", that even though she never really entered the wood (a real person actually never really enters our dreams, just our memory of the person in real life) that it touched him enough to rouse him "for the wood wakes" and he awoke next to her "you are here for proof." The proof that he really does care about her is that he woke from the wood to find her living form. It's an incredible look at how a dream can seem so real that when we wake we look at the person it was about differently than before. excellent. -
I like the end to the first stanza, it makes me curious about what the wrong is that must be first undone before she can enter the forest to find her true love. It's almost like that wrong is left undone for the imagination though, I'm not crazy about clifthangers like that, but that's just me.
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good
This poem is about somebody dream of love but dare not to love. -
I like it
The poem has got a very deep sensation of the lonely feelings of some very innocent lover who celebrates his own imaginations; the poet has a striking command over his expressions
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