Tree-worship - (to John Lane) Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJIJ KLKL MNMN OPOP QRSR ITIT UVUV WXWX IIII YIYI ZIZI IVIV IA2IA2Vast and mysterious brother ere was yet of me | A |
So much as men may poise upon a needle's end | B |
Still shook with laughter all this monstrous might of thee | A |
And still with haughty crest it called the morning friend | B |
- | |
Thy latticed column jetted up the bright blue air | C |
Tall as a mast it was and stronger than a tower | D |
Three hundred winters had beheld thee mighty there | C |
Before my little life had lived one little hour | D |
- | |
With rocky foot stern set like iron in the land | E |
With leafy rustling crest the morning sows with pearls | F |
Huge as a minster half in heaven men saw thee stand | E |
Thy rugged girth the waists of fifty Eastern girls | F |
- | |
Knotted and warted slabbed and armoured like the hide | G |
Of tropic elephant unstormable and steep | H |
As some grim fortress with a princess pearl inside | G |
Where savage guardian faces beard the bastioned keep | H |
- | |
So hard a rind old tree shielding so soft a heart | I |
A woman's heart of tender little nestling leaves | J |
Nor rind so hard but that a touch so soft can part | I |
And Spring's first baby bud an easy passage cleaves | J |
- | |
I picture thee within with dainty satin sides | K |
Where all the long day through the sleeping dryad dreams | L |
But when the moon bends low and taps thee thrice she glides | K |
Knowing the fairy knock to bask within her beams | L |
- | |
And all the long night through for him with eyes and ears | M |
She sways within thine arms and sings a fairy tune | N |
Till startled with the dawn she softly disappears | M |
And sleeps and dreams again until the rising moon | N |
- | |
But with the peep of day great bands of heavenly birds | O |
Fill all thy branchy chambers with a thousand flutes | P |
And with the torrid noon stroll up the weary herds | O |
To seek thy friendly shade and doze about thy roots | P |
- | |
Till with the setting sun they turn them once more home | Q |
And ere the moon dawns for a brief enchanted space | R |
Weary with million miles the sore spent star beams come | S |
And moths and bats hold witches' sabbath in the place | R |
- | |
And then I picture thee some bloodstained Holyrood | I |
Dread haunted palace of the bat and owl whence steal | T |
Shrouded all day lost murdered spirits of the wood | I |
And fright young happy nests with homeless hoot and squeal | T |
- | |
Then maybe dangling from thy gloomy gallows boughs | U |
A human corpse swings mournful rattling bones and chains | V |
His eighteenth century flesh hath fattened nineteenth century cows | U |
Ghastly Aeolian harp fingered of winds and rains | V |
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Poor Rizpah comes to reap each newly fallen bone | W |
That once thrilled soft a little limb within her womb | X |
And mark yon alchemist with zodiac spangled zone | W |
Wrenching the mandrake root that fattens in the gloom | X |
- | |
So rounds thy day from maiden morn to haunted night | I |
From larks and sunlit dreams to owl and gibbering ghost | I |
A catacomb of dark a maze of living light | I |
To the wide sea of air a green and welcome coast | I |
- | |
I seek a god old tree accept my worship thou | Y |
All other gods have failed me always in my need | I |
I hang my votive song beneath thy temple bough | Y |
Unto thy strength I cry Old monster be my creed | I |
- | |
Give me to clasp this earth with feeding roots like thine | Z |
To mount yon heaven with such star aspiring head | I |
Fill full with sap and buds this shrunken life of mine | Z |
And from my boughs oh might such stalwart sons be shed | I |
- | |
With loving cheek pressed close against thy horny breast | I |
I hear the roar of sap mounting within thy veins | V |
Tingling with buds thy great hands open towards the west | I |
To catch the sweetheart winds that bring the sister rains | V |
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O winds that blow from out the fruitful mouth of God | I |
O rains that softly fall from His all loving eyes | A2 |
You that bring buds to trees and daisies to the sod | I |
O God's best Angel of the Spring in me arise | A2 |
Richard Le Gallienne
(1)
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