Here once the evenings sobbed, Here once the angels lay in the curve of morning. How the hill streamed to your feet like a floating nymph, You god of the fields! And now: O pear-tree in despair's garden! Grizzled hunchback! Your hungry supplication, your slack begging arm Scratches the weary sun! Here the mourner squats of nights and jeers at autumn. And afternoons, the street-gamins chirp to you. A child's go-cart Leans in the imagined shadow of your foliage. You are a helpless, mute cry of the earth, Sick, afflicted tree, In the valley of rubbish heaps and tin cans! And only the autumn wind, your banished brother, Sometimes rains upon your galled spirit And brings you a breath of sea, a memory of stars. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONNETS OF MANHOOD: 16. VENUS INCARNATE by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) THE HUMAN TOUCH by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON THE NAIAD by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN A PROTEST by ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH TO MY FRIEND, MR. JOHN ANDERSON by CHARLES COTTON STANZAS PRINTED ON BILLS OF MORTALITY: 1790 by WILLIAM COWPER |