In A Northern Wood

A primaeval forest sanctuary of Elemi balsam, balsam fir needles, charred cedar heartwood, dark oakmoss, opoponax, aged oudwood, deerstongue fern, woodsmoke, aromatic fungi, patchouli, and loam. Fragrant are the cedar-boughs stretching green and level, Feasting-halls where waxwings flit at their spicy revel, But O the pine, the questing pine, that flings its arms on high To search the secret of the sun and escalade the sky! Rueful hemlocks, gaunt and old, with boughs a-droop, despairing, Clutch for touch of mother-earth; the while the pine is daring To rock the stars amid its cones and lull them with its croon, And snare the silver eagle that is nested in the moon. - Katharine Lee Bates (In a Northern Wood) Art: Study for Im Zauberwald by Heinrich Schlitt, 1902