Nightmare

The tree stood flowering in a dream:

Beside the tree a dark shape bowed:

As lightning glittered the axe-gleam

Across the wound in the broken wood.

The tree cried out with human cries:

From its deepening hurt the blood ran:

The branches flowered with children's eyes

And the dark murderer was a man.

There came a fear which sighed aloud;

And with its fear the dream-world woke:

Yet in the day the tree still stood

Bleeding beneath the axe-man's stroke.