The Call of the Forest - Shante Saryharakshita

What does the forest whisper

With every wind-stirred leaf,

From many-centuried oak tree 

To hour-old blossom-sheaf? 

What does the forest whisper 

When nightingales are dumb 

And cícadas fall silent? 

The forest whispers, ‘Come’. 

What does the forest whisper 

In sunshine and in shade, 

Down every moss-hung alley, 

In each deer-haunted glade? 

What does the forest whisper 

When full or crescent moon 

Steeps nodding crests in silver? 

The forest whispers, ‘Soon’. 

What does the forest whisper 

From depths primeval, where


A sound is lost in stillness


As clouds dissolve in air?


What does the forest whisper 

When from the darkling bough 

Drop one by one the dead leaves? 

The forest whispers, ‘Now’. 

But the whisper’s a dream-whisper, 

For years on years have flown 

Since oak and ash and holly


Could call the land their own. 

The whisper’s a dream-whisper, 

For Cities of the Plain


Usurp the once-green kingdom 

Of forests they have slain. 

The whisper’s a dream-whisper, 

For ‘forest’ is a dream


Of days when Man through 

Nature Had sense of a Supreme. 

The whisper’s a dream-whisper 

Of a time when he could feel


In the pressure of the actual 

The touch of the Ideal. 

The whisper’s a dream-whisper, 

But dreams are of the Soul


And Soul itself a forest


Beyond the mind’s control. 

The whisper’s a Soul-whisper,


That like a muffled drum


Calls, ‘From your mind-built Cities, 

O Man, to Freedom come!’