Not magnificently lost in wide Gothic forest closes, with strong
great blackish green trunks and branches all around overwhelming and
thrilling me.
Not dramatically lost on desert reefs with breakers riding up like
menacing hosts and joyously drowning me.
But lost surprisingly in a small clump of shoulder-high hazel-brush.
In it are some wood-ticks, and a few caterpillars, and a few wan
spiders which spin little desultory webs from twig to twig and then
abandon them for other twigs. Underfoot are unexpected wet places at
intervals that my high hard heels sink into exasperatingly.
I walk round and round and across in the hazel-brush groping and
knowing I’m lost in it but knowing little else of it: knowing no way
out of it.
The bushes bear green leaves--rather small ones and warped because
the clump is in a half-shaded place back of a hill. And they bear
hazel-nuts, but not very good ones--mostly shell.
_A thin damnedness_