Longing

Sarah A. HeinzerlingDreamy

Today my soul is longing For the odor of the pines, For the aromatic smells Springing up from hidden wells, Till the air is laden rankly For a mile or so around, With the fragrance of the pine trees And the needles on the ground.

Today my soul is longing For the voices of the pines; For the whisperings that tell How some lovely thing befell, Long ago, beneath the arches Of the great trees standing round, With their branches interlacing And the needles on the ground.

Sarah A. Heinzerling

SourceLicence:Public domain (US, unrenewed)

Mood:: Dreamy
Topics:: memory, pine, forest

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Summary

Two stanzas, each beginning with the same plain confession: "Today my soul is longing." The speaker isn't longing for a person or a place by name, but for the pines themselves, first their smell, then their sound. In the opening stanza the scent is almost overpowering, rising from "hidden wells" until the air is "laden rankly" for a mile around. The second stanza shifts to hearing. The trees seem to whisper about "some lovely thing" that happened long ago beneath their branches, though we're never told what it was.

That vagueness is part of the charm. The speaker misses something half-remembered, a feeling as much as a place. Both stanzas end on the same quiet image, "the needles on the ground," which anchors the poem like a soft carpet underfoot. The mood is dreamy and wistful, with a gentle sweetness rather than real sorrow, as if the speaker is enjoying the ache of missing the woods.

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