YE Trees! whose slender roots entwine Altars that piety neglects; Whose infant arms enclasp the shrine Which no devotion now respects; If not a straggler from the herd Here ruminate, nor shrouded bird, Chanting her low-voiced hymn, take pride In aught that ye would grace or hide -- How sadly is your love misplaced, Fair Trees, your bounty run to waste! Ye, too, wild Flowers! that no one heeds, And ye -- full often spurned as weeds -- In beauty clothed, or breathing sweetness From fractured arch and mouldering wall -- Do but more touchingly recall Man's headstrong violence and Time's fleetness, Making the precincts ye adorn Appear to sight still more forlorn. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON TALK OF PEACE AT THIS TIME by ROBERT FROST IN THE DAYS OF PRISMATIC COLOR by MARIANNE MOORE THREE SILENCES IN THAILAND by KAREN SWENSON THE INNOVATOR by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET WHERE THE PICNIC WAS by THOMAS HARDY |