Explore "Genius Loci" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I. What wood-god, on this water's mossy curb, / Lost in reflections of earth's loveliness, / Did I, just now, unconsciously disturb? / I, who haphazard, wandering at a guess, / Came on this spot, wherein, with gold and flame / Of buds and blooms, the season writes its name. -- / Ah, me! could I have seen him ere alarm / Of my approach aroused him from his calm! / As he, part Hamadryad and, mayhap, / Part Faun, lay here; who left the shadow warm / As wildwood rose, and filled the air with balm / Of his sweet breath as with ethereal sap.
II. Does not the moss retain some vague impress, / Green dented in, of where he lay or trod? / Do not the flow'rs, so reticent, confess / With conscious looks the contact of a god? / Does not the very water garrulously / Boast the indulgence of a deity? / And, hark! in burly beech and sycamore / How all the birds proclaim it! and the leaves / Rejoice with clappings of their myriad hands! / And shall not I believe, too, and adore, / With such wide proof? -- Yea, though my soul perceives / No evident presence, still it understands.