THE MOSSES OF EPPING.
By
JAMES T. SKINNER.
There is a forest frail whose beauty springs
When summer's garb has gone, and all the leaves
Lie scattered red and bronzed like flame-licked wings
Beneath the withered boughs and berried weaves.
So trim its trees and small, oh, more than small
Each tiny woodland glade, each copse and dell;
A fairy-world of floss, of tuft and ball,
Set far and wide where heath and rushes dwell.
In rosy knots by bog and swampy marsh,
Or here, again, with glowing orange seed;
There, glaucous green, of twofold spray and harsh,
Or downy soft where swims the silvered bead.
Oh, Epping mosses rare, who but admires
Your feath'ry shoots, yowr cushioned underbrush?
Who knows you grown, like Phoenix from the fires
Where heather's burned, and does not love your blush ?
They call you "Swan's Neck moss," and "Stag's Horn" too
Because your tendrils flung like antlers are—
Or "club moss" here by Cowper's Camp and through
To Little Monk Wood's columned aisles afar.
'Tis ruby sphagnum moss that here prefers
Through reeking turf to rear each lissom frond,
And lend Its beauty where the long sedge stirs
Like phantom arms above the darkling pond.
In gravel pit, on bole, or bank outspread,
The mounds of "French moss" curl like driven foam-
That moss whose lace, torn ruthless from its bed,
Yet keeps its charm to grace some English home.
The rolling rock no meed shall gain, we yield,
Nor mosses gather if pursued its way;
Yet I aver: seek Epping—wood or weald—
And fairest moss they'll find who farthest stray.