| Thomas Hardy (1840–1928). Wessex Poems and Other Verses. 1898. |
| |
| 39. In a Wood |
| |
| |
| 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, | 5 |
| Why mar sweet comradeship, | |
| Blighting with poison-drip | |
| Neighborly spray? | |
| |
| Heart-halt and spirit-lame, | |
| City-opprest, | 10 |
| Unto this wood I came | |
| As to a nest; | |
| Dreaming that sylvan peace | |
| Offered the harrowed ease— | |
| Nature a soft release | 15 |
| From men’s unrest. | |
| |
| But, having entered in, | |
| Great growths and small | |
| Show them to men akin— | |
| Combatants all! | 20 |
| Sycamore shoulders oak, | |
| Bines the slim sapling yoke, | |
| Ivy-spun halters choke | |
| Elms stout and tall. | |
| |
| Touches from ash, O wych, | 25 |
| Sting you like scorn! | |
| You, too, brave hollies, twitch | |
| Sidelong from thorn. | |
| Even the rank poplars bear | |
| Illy a rival’s air, | 30 |
| Cankering in black despair | |
| If overborne. | |
| |
| Since, then, no grace I find | |
| Taught me of trees, | |
| Turn I back to my kind, | 35 |
| Worthy as these. | |
| There at least smiles abound, | |
| There discourse trills around, | |
| There, now and then, are found | |
Life-loyalties.
1887–1896. | 40 |
| |
|
|
|
