In a wood

Pale beech and pine so blue,

Set in one clay,

Bough to bough cannot you

Live 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

Lothly 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.