The Ash

The undecaying yew has shed his flowers     Long since in golden showers.     The elm has robed her height     In green, and hangs maternal o'er the bright     Starred meadows, and her full-contented breast     Lifts and sinks to rest.     Shades drowsing in the grass     Beneath the hedge move but as the hours pass.     Beech, oak and beam have all put beauty on     In the eye of the sun.     Because the hawthorn's sweet     All the earth is sweet and the air, and the wind's feet.     In the wood's green hollows the earth is sweet and wet,     For scarce one shaft may get     The sudden green between:     Only that warm sweet creeps between the green;     Or in the clearing the bluebells lifting high     Make another azure sky.     All's leaf and flower except     The sluggish ash that all night long has slept,     And all the morning of this lingering spring.     Every tree else may sing,     Every bough laugh and shake;     But the ash like an old man does not wake     Even though draws near the season's poise and noon     Of heavy-poppied swoon ...     Still the ash is asleep,     Or from his lower upraised palms now creep     First green leaves, promising that even those gaunt     Tossed boughs shall be the haunt     Of Autumn starlings shrill     Mid his full-leaved high branches never still.     If to any tree,     'Tis to the ash that I might likened be--     Masculine, unamenable, delaying,     With palms uplifted praying     For another life and Spring     Yet unforeshadowed; but content to swing     Stiff branches chill and bare     In this fine-quivering air     That others' love makes sweetness everywhere.