AS the long desert downs you pass between, That French Sahara, bleached sands far and wide 'Mid the sere grass, and water ditches green, You see no tree, but pine with wounded side. For, to deprive him of his resinous tears, Man, Nature's murderer, slave of avarice, Who only lives by what he kills and tears, In his pained trunk cuts a large orifice. Ne'er grudging that his life-blood flows away, The pine his balsam yields till all is lost, And holds himself upright in full array, Like wounded soldier dying at his post. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LAWYER'S INVOCATION TO SPRING by HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL THE CHARIOT by EMILY DICKINSON ASPATIA'S SONG, FR. THE MAID'S TRAEGDY by JOHN FLETCHER BANTAMS IN PINE-WOODS by WALLACE STEVENS MY PRAYER by HENRY DAVID THOREAU MARE LIBERUM by HENRY VAN DYKE BILL SWEENY OF THE BLACK GANG by JAMES BARNES |