Magic paths there are that cross; Some beset with jewelled moss And boughs all bare; where others run, Bluebells bathe in mist and sun Past a clearing filled with clumps Of primrose round the nutwood stumps; All as gay as gay can be, And bordered with dog-mercury, The wizard flower, the wizard green, Like a Persian carpet seen. Brown, dead bracken lies between, And wrinkled leaves, whence fronds of fern Still untwist and upward turn. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! No man could Issue from this wizard wood, Half of green, and half of brown, Unless he laid his senses down. Seven times I held my way Where new heaps of brushwood lay, All with withies loosely bound, And never heard a human sound. Yet men have toiled and men have rested By yon hurdles darkly-breasted, Woven in and woven out, Piled four-square, and turned about To show their white and sharpened stakes Like teeth of hounds or fangs of snakes. The men are homeward sped, for none Loves silence and a sinking sun. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Woodmen know Souls are lost that hear it so, Seven times upon the wind, To lull the watch-dogs of the mind. A stranger wood you shall not find! Beech and birch and oak agree Here to dwell in company. Hazel, elder, few men could Name the kinds of underwood. Summer and winter haunt together, And golden light with misty weather. 'Tis summer where this beech is seen Defenceless in its virgin green; All its leaves are smooth and thin, And the sunlight passes in, Passes in and filters through To a green heaven below the blue. Low the branches fall and trace A circle round that mystic place, Guarded on its outward side By hyacinths in all their pride; And within dim moons appear, Wax and wane--I go not near! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! How we fear Sights and sounds that come and go Without a cause for men to know! Why for a whispered doubt should I Shun that other beech-tree high, Red and watchful, still and bare, With a thousand spears in air, Guarding yet its treasured leaf From storm and hail and winter's grief? Unregarded on the ground Leaves of yester-year abound, For what is autumn's gold to one That hoards a life scarce yet begun? Let me so renew my youth, I defend it, nail and tooth, Rooting deep and lifting high. For this my dead leaves hiss and sigh And glow as on the downward road To the dog-snake's dread abode. Noxious things of earth and air, Get you hence, for I prepare To flaunt my beauty in the sun When all beside me are undone. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Pan shall see The surge of my virginity Overtop the sobered glade. Luminous and unafraid Near his sacred oak I'll spread Lures to tempt him from his bed: His couch, his lair his form shall be By none but by the fair beech-tree.