The subtle power in perfume found <br />Nor priest nor sibyl vainly learned; <br />On Grecian shrine or Aztec mound <br />No censer idly burned. <br /> <br />That power the old-time worships knew, <br />The Corybantes' frenzied dance, <br />The Pythian priestess swooning through <br />The wonderland of trance. <br /> <br />And Nature holds, in wood and field, <br />Her thousand sunlit censers still; <br />To spells of flower and shrub we yield <br />Against or with our will. <br /> <br />I climbed a hill path strange and new <br />With slow feet, pausing at each turn; <br />A sudden waft of west wind blew <br />The breath of the sweet fern. <br /> <br />That fragrance from my vision swept <br />The alien landscape; in its stead, <br />Up fairer hills of youth I stepped, <br />As light of heart as tread. <br /> <br />I saw my boyhood's lakelet shine <br />Once more through rifts of woodland shade; <br />I knew my river's winding line <br />By morning mist betrayed. <br /> <br />With me June's freshness, lapsing brook, <br />Murmurs of leaf and bee, the call <br />Of birds, and one in voice and look <br />In keeping with them all. <br /> <br />A fern beside the way we went <br />She plucked, and, smiling, held it up, <br />While from her hand the wild, sweet scent <br />I drank as from a cup. <br /> <br />O potent witchery of smell! <br />The dust-dry leaves to life return, <br />And she who plucked them owns the spell <br />And lifts her ghostly fern. <br /> <br />Or sense or spirit? Who shall say <br />What touch the chord of memory thrills? <br />It passed, and left the August day <br />Ablaze on lonely hills.<br /><br />John Greenleaf Whittier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sweet-fern/
