(The following are three passages from VW's "The Mark on the Wall" that I have set in poetic lines to highlight the poetry of Virginia Woolf's prose.)
The Tree Outside the Window Taps Gently . . .
The tree outside the window taps gently on the pane . . . .
I want to think quietly, calmly, spaciously,
Never to be interrupted,
Never to have to rise from my chair,
To slip easily from one thing to another,
Without any sense of hostility, or obstacle.
I want to sink deeper and deeper,
Away from the surface with its hard separate facts.
To steady myself, let me catch hold
Of the first idea that passes . . .
I like to think of the tree itself:
First the close dry sensation of being wood;
Then the grinding of the storm;
Then the slow, delicious ooze of sap.
I like to think of it, too, on winter’s nights
Standing in the empty field with its leaves close-furled,
Nothing tender exposed to the iron bullets of the moon,
A naked mast upon the earth that goes tumbling, tumbling all night long.
The song of birds must sound very loud and strange in June . . . .
But after life.
The slow pulling down of thick green stalks
So that the cup of the flower,
As it turns over,
Deluges one with purple and red light.
Why, after all, should one not be born here,
Helpless, speechless, unable to focus one’s eyesight,
Groping at the roots of the grass,
At the toes of Giants?