1 It is empty save for trees and weeds.
2 The trees parted before us, calling us forward.
3 We saw birds in the tree branches, and flying from under our footsteps.
4 And we came to a stream which lay as a streak of glass among the trees.
5 We looked too long at the stars at night, and at the trees and the earth.
6 We brought water from the stream which runs among the trees under our windows.
7 And then we saw the fold of a white tunic among the trees, and a gleam of gold.
8 We are walking to the fangs awaiting us somewhere among the great, silent trees.
9 We can see their eyes, green and yellow as coals, watching us from the tree branches beyond.
10 Then today, at sunrise, we saw a white flame among the trees, high on a sheer peak before us.
11 The trees have swallowed the ruins, and the bones under the ruins, and all the things which perished.
12 The trees had protected it from time and weather, and from men who have less pity than time and weather.
13 When the shadows gathered among the trees, we stopped in a hollow between the roots, where we shall sleep tonight.
14 Then our hands seized a branch and swung us high into a tree, with no aim save the wonder of learning the strength of our body.
15 It lay so still that we saw no water but only a cut in the earth, in which the trees grew down, upturned, and the sky lay at the bottom.
16 Men never enter the Uncharted Forest, for there is no power to explore it and no path to lead among its ancient trees which stand as guards of fearful secrets.