Friendship in the Woods to Win

8×10″ oil painting on canvas paper
September 12, 2012

Inspired by the following passage from George MacDonald’s poem “The Dweller’s Therein”:

Down a warm alley, early in the year,
Among the woods, with all the sunshine in
And all the winds outside it, I begin
To think that something gracious will appear,
If anything of grace inhabit here,
Or there be friendship in the woods to win.

Might one but find companion more akin
To trees and grass and happy daylight clear,
And in this wood spend one long hour at home!
The fairies do not love so bright a place,
And angels to the forest never come,
But I have dreamed of some harmonious race,
The kindred of the shapes that haunt the shore
Of Music’s flow and flow for evermore.