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...PENT by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON A CHILD'S EVENING PRAYER by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE THE THREAD OF LIFE by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI AT THE SEASIDE by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON EL HOMBRE by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS THE OLD MEN ADMIRING THEMSELVES IN THE WATER by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS IMPROMPTU LINES ON JULY FOURTH by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS THE NONSENSE SAW OF A SAW-GIRL I SAW IN ARKANSAW by FRED W. ALLSOPP |