The poem
I have a tiny piney wood; my trees are only fifty, Yet give me shade and solitude For they are thick and thrifty. And every day to me they fling With largess undenying, Fat cones to make my kettle sing And keep my pan a-frying.
Go buy yourself a piney wood If you have gold for spending, Where you can dream in mellow mood With peace and joy unending; Where you can cheerfully retreat Beyond all churchly chiding, And make yourself a temple sweet Of rapturous abiding.
Oh silence has a secret voice That claims the soul for portal, And those who hear it may rejoice Since they are more than mortal. So sitting in my piney wood When soft the owl is winging, As still as Druid stone I brood . . . For hark! the stars are singing.