Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
France: Vols. IX–X. 1876–79.
In the Forest of Fontainebleau
By Christopher Pearse Cranch (18131892)T
In the grand old Forest of Fontainebleau
Go with me still wherever I go.
Won from the forest’s light and gloom;
Not yet shall they sink to an auction’s doom.
They take me back to the wonderful woods,
The wild, dream-haunted solitudes.
And I think of the days when with busy hand
I painted alone in the forest grand.
Their boughs and foliage over my head.
About the mossy rocks I tread.
In the green dim dells of the Bas-Brëau,
Mid ferns and laurel-tufts I go;
Circle me round like a giant-wreath,
Plunge knee-deep in the purple heath;
Where the white umbrella and easel stand,
And the rocks lie picturesque and grand.
Has dressed the woods with a bronzy gold,
And scarlet scarfs of a wealth untold.
And seem to touch the unclouded skies,
And round their tops with clamorous cries
And down on the brown leaf-matting below
The lights and the shadows come and go.
With wings of joy to the tasks beloved,
And art its own best guerdon proved!
I sat in my leafy studio
In the dear old Forest of Fontainebleau.