The Chestnut

Who enters here, beneath this guardian shade,
Feels over him a tender sky of leaves
Dearer than heaven: at once his eye receives
Strange quiet: fathomless as water swayed
Above far--sunken ships, this luminous height
Of dimness interposed
Against the hot sun--beams
Opens, a world uncertain of cool dreams
And blurs of shadow and spots of sleepy light
With ever greener quiet charmed and closed.
Yet in the soft--hung leaves a splendour lies,
As though not from the far--off noon it came
But in themselves a green indwelling flame
Were prisoned. Here unanswered mysteries
Content me, and of peace I want not more,
But feed on thoughts that end
In a sweet pause of mind,
As if from my own being back resigned
To the universal essence of Earth's core,
Where over me the saps of life ascend.