Frederick Philip Grove
Arctic Woods
(MP 8)

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e-Edition by Gaby Divay
© August 2007

University of Manitoba Libraries	FPG & FrL Collections	University of Manitoba Archives

Arctic Woods[40] by Frederick Philip Grove These are the woods of all the voices dead, Of putrid moisture and of almost night, The woods of ditches[41] with green scum bespread From whence large eyes send[42] iridescent light. These are the woods of stems with curly bark, White like the skin that never yet was bared: The woods that hold me motionless and stark So that I am as who no motion dared. And when at noon in all the glades the grass As in a swoon, scarce breathing, seems to die, A giant wing, dark, rigid, as of brass, From all the stems shuts off so sun as[43] sky. And then -- a whisper: I look up in fear:[44] A snowwhite horse glides through  the leafless trees: It stirs nor head nor foot, nor eye nor ear: Frozen in flight. I am as[45] one who flees.[46] Miscellaneous Poems 8a