Wessex Poems and Other Verses: In a Wood

In a Wood

See "THE WOODLANDERS"

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Pale beech and pine-tree blue,
   Set in one clay,
Bough to bough cannot you
   Bide out your day?
When the rains skim and skip,
Why mar sweet comradeship,
Blighting with poison-drip
   Neighbourly spray?
Heart-halt and spirit-lame,
   City-opprest,
Unto this wood I came
   As to a nest;
Dreaming that sylvan peace
Offered the harrowed ease--
Nature a soft release
   From men's unrest.
But, having entered in,
   Great growths and small
Show them to men akin -
   Combatants all!
Sycamore shoulders oak,
Bines the slim sapling yoke,
Ivy-spun halters choke
   Elms stout and tall.
Touches from ash, O wych,
   Sting you like scorn!
You, too, brave hollies, twitch
   Sidelong from thorn.
Even the rank poplars bear
Illy a rival's air,
Cankering in black despair
   If overborne.
Since, then, no grace I find
   Taught me of trees,
Turn I back to my kind,
   Worthy as these.
There at least smiles abound,
There discourse trills around,
There, now and then, are found
   Life-loyalties.
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1887: 1896.

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