| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | A South Carolina Forest | | By Amy Lowell |
| | From “Southern April”
HUSH, hush, these woods are thick with shapes and voices, | |
| They crowd behind, in front, | |
| Scarcely can one’s wheels break through them. | |
| For God’s sake, drive quickly! | |
| There are butchered victims behind those trees, | 5 |
| And what you say is moss I know is the dead hair of hanged men. | |
| Drive faster, faster! | |
| The hair will catch in our wheels and clog them; | |
| We are thrown from side to side by the dead bodies in the road. | |
| Do you not smell the reek of them, | 10 |
| And see the jaundiced film that hides the stars? | |
| Stand on the accelerator. I would rather be bumped to a jelly | |
| Than caught by clutching hands I cannot see, | |
| Than be stifled by the press of mouths I cannot feel. | |
| Not in the light glare, you fool, but on either side of it. | 15 |
| Curse these swift, running trees— | |
| Hurl them aside, leap them, crush them down! | |
| Say prayers if you like, | |
| Do anything to drown the screaming silence of this forest, | |
| To hide the spinning shapes that jam the trees. | 20 |
| What mystic adventure is this | |
| In which you have engulfed me? | |
| What no-world have you shot us into? | |
| What Dante dream without a farther edge? | |
| Fright kills, they say, and I believe it. | 25 |
| If you would not have murder on your conscience, | |
| For Heaven’s sake, get on! | | | | |
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