Where sunshine flecks the green, 
Through towering woods my way 
Goes winding all the day. 

Scant are the flowers that bloom 
Beneath the bosky screen
And cage of golden gloom. 
Few are the birds that call, 
Shrill-voiced and seldom seen. 

Where silence masters all, 
And light my footsteps fall,
The whispering runnels only 
With blazing noon confer; 
And comes no breeze to stir 
The tangled thickets lonely.