Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE FOREST PINE, by LAURENCE BINYON Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: A hundred autumns fallen in fire Last Line: Still their wild wings. Subject(s): Forests; Pine Trees; Woods | ||||||||
A HUNDRED autumns fallen in fire To dust and mould Have faded from their perished gold To throne thee higher, O Titan pine that soarest straight From ground to sky without a mate, Like one desire. Dark is the hollow as a cup Of shadow immense, Of daylight-daunting dimness, whence Thou springest up Far into light, to take thy fill Of splendour, solitary in still Magnificence. Leaves of the low brake hide a stir Of small soft things: Life, busy in flit of secret wings And slinking fur, Pricks buried seeds that upward thrust, And green through germinating dust Triumphant stings. But thou, that seemest earth to scorn And air to claim, With all thy plumy spire aflame And crest upborne In the blue air, so far, so high, As if the silence of the sky About thee came. Thou hidest all the sappy stream That in thee swells: Motionless fibre nothing tells: And thou dost seem To tower in glorious ignorance Of earth's small stir and chafe, a trance, A soaring dream! And in a trance thou holdest me With bated will; And I am still, as thou art still, My spirit free, My body charm-dissolved to naught But the vibration of a thought, If thought could be. O hush! within the blood is felt An airy fear, A faltering; and the heart can hear The silence melt To something frailer than a sound Borne from the wide horizon's bound To the inward ear. Slowly, ah! slowly, a hush begins, A trembling, where Those branches sleep on golden air, And gradual wins A voice, a music, a long surge, Sweet as a song, sad as a dirge, Sighed out like prayer! The singer knows not what he sings. A lonely sound Comes trembling through him from profound Aërial springs. The songs, the sighs, the world exiled, Seek him and in his heart-throbs wild Still their wild wings. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE PRINCESS WAKES IN THE WOOD by RANDALL JARRELL CHAMBER MUSIC: 20 by JAMES JOYCE ADVICE TO A FOREST by MAXWELL BODENHEIM A SOUTH CAROLINA FOREST by AMY LOWELL JOY IN THE WOODS by CLAUDE MCKAY IN BLACKWATER WOODS by MARY OLIVER THE PLACE I WANT TO GET BACK TO by MARY OLIVER FOR THE FALLEN (SEPTEMBER 1914) by LAURENCE BINYON |
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