| FROM what meek jewel seed | |
| Did this tree spring? | |
| How first beat its new life in bleak abode | |
| Of virgin rock, strange metals for its food, | |
| Towards its last hewn mould, the bitter rood? | 5 |
| First did it sprout, indeed, | |
| A double wing. | |
| |
| Earth hung with its gross weight | |
| Its loins unto: | |
| The tender wings, with hope in every vein, | 10 |
| Beat feebly upward, saying: ‘Is this the pain | |
| The Sooth spake of; to lift to God again | |
| This blackness’ dark estate | |
| Reformed anew? | |
| |
| ‘Mine ’tis, of fruit mine own, | 15 |
| To work this deed: | |
| Earnest of promise absolute, these green | |
| Sweet wings; a million engines pulse therein. | |
| Yet can I leave not for a space, to lean | |
| Upon a fulcrum known, | 20 |
| To know my need.’ | |
| |
| With which, the seed upthrust | |
| To God a scale; | |
| Wondering at its fibre and tough growth; | |
| Saying, the while it purposed: ‘For He knoweth | 25 |
| My sore extremity, how I am loth | |
| To cleave unto the dust | |
| Which makes me hale.’ | |
| |
| Long while the scale increased | |
| In height and girth; | 30 |
| Cast many branches forth and many wings; | |
| Wherein and under, formed and fashioned things | |
| Had great content and speech and twitterings: | |
| Insect and fowl and beast | |
| And sons of earth. | 35 |
| |
| Stern, netherward did grope | |
| Each resolute root | |
| Of the tree, making question in the deep | |
| Of spirits, where the mighty metals sleep, | |
| How long ere from its base the rock should leap; | 40 |
| Saying: ‘Yet have I hope | |
| Of that my fruit.’ | |
| |
| Sprang from its topmost bough | |
| The hope at length | |
| Fearsome and fierce and passionate. The sire | 45 |
| Warmed his son’s vitals with celestial fire, | |
| Feeding him with sweet gum of strong desire, | |
| Lest be not stanch enow | |
| His godly strength. | |
| |
| Until the gardener came | 50 |
| With his white spouse, | |
| Wounding the tree, and ravishing the son, | |
| (Whence curses fallen and a world undone.) | |
| For that rape, wrathfully a shining one | |
| Drave them with fearful flame | 55 |
| Without their house. | |
| |
| Race upon savage race, | |
| Rough brood on brood, | |
| Defiled before it, whiles the tree scanned each; | |
| Leaned leaf and branch to grapple and beseech; | 60 |
| Till, on a certain day, requiring speech | |
| Of the tree, at its base | |
| The whole world stood: | |
| |
| ‘What hast thou given us, | |
| Thou barren tree? | 65 |
| “Knowledge,” thou answerest? Thou hast set agape | |
| The door of Knowledge only. Thy limbs ape | |
| Some truth. We love thee not, nor love thy shape. | |
| Imposture, thus and thus | |
| We fashion thee.’ | 70 |
| |
| Sorely then handled it | |
| The gardener’s sons. | |
| Strangely they built it newly, having cleft | |
| Its being all asunder; stem bereft | |
| Of quivering limbs, save one to right and left, | 75 |
| Urging the self-same wit | |
| It gave them once. | |
| |
| Lo! all my glories fall. | |
| Of these my woes, | |
| What know those wrathful men, save, in yon place, | 80 |
| Perhaps, yon athlete, stripped for my embrace? | |
| If longing cheat me not, writ in his face, | |
| He knows about it all, | |
| He knows, he knows. | |
| |
| ‘Sorrow! What sin they now, | 85 |
| Those wrathful men? | |
| Passion! thou’rt come to me again too soon: | |
| Too hot thou givst me back the fiery boon | |
| I gave thee; love consumes me, that I swoon; | |
| Thou, on my topmost bough, | 90 |
| My fruit again.’ | |
