Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE CRAB TREE, by CAROLINE CLIVE First Line: A bank rose high above a rill Last Line: The lovely, useless, sweet crab tree? Alternate Author Name(s): V; Meysey-wigley, Caroline Subject(s): Trees | ||||||||
A BANK rose high above a rill, Whose wave through breeze-stirr'd branches quiver; Its careless sound came up the hill Increasing, lessening, for ever. Upon the bank a crab tree grew, All pink and white with crowds of flowers; Uncounted birds, unnumbered bees, Took pleasure in those perfumed bowers. And I rejoiced while this might last, To feed and fill mine eye and ear; 'Twas not a future joy, nor past, But I was happy then and there. That untrain'd tree no fruit would bear That any hand would pluck for food; 'Twas only bright, 'twas only fair, Gemming the upland solitude. Scenes grander far I've left behind, Hours I have spent of nobler rank, But many such escape my mind, While memory keeps that tree and bank. Again I turned when May came round, The flowers, the birds, the bees to see: But where I sought them, on the ground There lay cut down the sweet crab tree. T'was pity of the tree, I thought; Why not have spared its pleading grace? Some pelf its fall might bring, dear bought By beauty banish'd from the place. The oak is fell'd to build a town, The pine a war-ship's mast to be; But why so carelessly cut down The lovely, useless, sweet crab tree? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE PROBLEM OF DESCRIBING TREES by ROBERT HASS THE GREEN CHRIST by ANDREW HUDGINS MIDNIGHT EDEN by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN REFLECTION OF THE WOOD by LEONIE ADAMS |
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