In a Mushroom Gown

Its friendship and its carelessness

Did lead me many a mile,

Through goat’s-rue, with its dim caress,

And pink and pearl-white smile;

Through crowfoot, with its golden lure,

And promise of far things,

And sorrel with its glance demure

And wide-eyed wonderings.

It led me with its innocence,

As childhood leads the wise,

With elbows here of tattered fence,

And blue of wildflower eyes;

With whispers low of leafy speech,

And brook-sweet utterance;

With bird-like words of oak and beech,

And whisperings clear as Pan’s.

It led me with its childlike charm,

As candor leads desire,

Now with a clasp of blossomy arm,

A butterfly kiss of fire;

Now with a toss of tousled gold,

A barefoot sound of green,

A breath of musk, of mossy mold,

With vague allurements keen.

It led me with remembered things

Into an old-time vale,

Peopled with faëry glimmerings,

And flower-like fancies pale;

Where fungous forms stood, gold and gray,

Each in its mushroom gown,

And, roofed with red, glimpsed far away,

A little toadstool town.

It led me with an idle ease,

A vagabond look and air,

A sense of ragged arms and knees

In weeds grown everywhere;

It led me, as a gypsy leads,

To dingles no one knows,

With beauty burred with thorny seeds,

And tangled wild with rose.

It led me as simplicity

Leads age and its demands,

With bee-beat of its ecstasy,

And berry-stained touch of hands;

With round revealments, puff-ball white,

Through rents of weedy brown,

And petaled movements of delight

In roseleaf limb and gown.

It led me on and on and on,

Beyond the Far Away,

Into a world long dead and gone,

The world of Yesterday:

A faëry world of memory,

Old with its hills and streams,

Wherein the child I used to be

Still wanders with his dreams

The Path to the Woods by Madison Cawein.