Good evening, all. It was absolutely wonderful to reconnect with my students this week. I am so glad that we are back in session as we venture to the end of the school year together.

Tonight’s sonnet is by the British poet and actress Fanny Kemble. It’s a love sonnet (of course), and it celebrates a love with nature that we all can appreciate.

Without further ado, “The Woods,” by Fanny Kemble.

The Woods

Cover me with your everlasting arms,–
Ye guardian giants of this solitude!–
From the ill-sight of men, and from the rude
Tumultuous din of yon wild world’s alarms!
Oh, knit your mighty limbs around, above,
And close me in for ever! let me dwell
With the wood spirits, in the darkest spell
That ever with your verdant locks ye wove.

The air is full of countless voices, joined
In one eternal hymn; the whispering wind,
The shuddering leaves, the hidden water springs,
The work-song of the bees, whose honeyed wings
Hang in the golden tresses of the lime,
Or buried lie in purple beds of thyme.