In A Wood

See "THE WOODLANDERS"     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.     1887: 1896.