Poetry of John Evans

Gustave Doré - ”Wood of the Suicides” 
Illustration from Dante’s Inferno, Canto 13 . (c.1861)

Muses on a wooded hollow
by John Evans
Beneath the tall elm tree where the shadow grows,
 
I sat and pondered in silent distress,
Admitting my faults to the wordless hollow,
 
Confessing my mind to a glade of wild grass.
No visitor stirred my solemn retreat,
Or bothered to mark me on their journey hence,
Save the creatures of that timeless wood,
And the memories that haunted my heated brain.
 
I thought I saw a prowling wolf,
With a coat of fur blacker than pitch,
And eyes that twinkled with a subtle rage,
Ere departing for his horrid hunt.

 
I thought I heard a nightingale sing,
In a voice like sunshine on the rugged earth,
Soothing the dull pain contemplation brings,
And life's misfortunes rightly earned.
 
I thought I felt a spirit pass,
Through my body in a gentle breeze,
Along the highways of the air,
Far above the thorny green.
 
I know not from whence it came,
Or of what kind it was before,
In bygone worlds the druid's praised,
In mystic omens their magic wove.
 
Thus I staggered from that forgotten place,
And traversed the chartless miles home,
Reckoning little of what I had witnessed,
 
Beneath the tall elm tree where the shadow grows.