Thomas Hardy

In a Wood

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,
Why mar sweet comradeship,
Blighting with poison-drip
  Neighborly 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.
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