In a Wood

In a Wood

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
   Neighborly 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.