Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SAD TREES, by ELOISE ROBINSON MUCHMORE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SAD TREES, by                    
First Line: The white oak and the ash and fir
Last Line: The tall young trees of france.
Subject(s): Trees; Wellesley College


THE white oak and the ash and fir
And every tree has stood
And drooped his leaves, and did not stir
All day long in the wood,
Nor move his branches on the air
When night came up the road.

They have no way they can forget
The tall young trees of France;
There is the drip of something wet,
They do not laugh nor dance.
They keep in mind the hickory,
The hawthorne and the pine,
The hazel and the poplar tree
That go down in a line,
How they go stepping quietly
In white moonshine,
And make no murmur as they go,
The white pine and the red,
And take their footsteps small and slow
Among brown husks of dead.

They know the birch has given his white
Young body to be slain;
The golden larch, all day and night,
Upon his face has lain;
The olives cannot stand upright,
Their shoes let in the rain.
They think of how the willows have
Been beaten to their knees,
And scyamores that were so brave
Are scarred, grim ghosts of trees.
They gravely name the tamarack,
And whisper when they tell
Of aspens who brought nothing back
But bodies, out of hell.

All day the sad trees did not wink
Their shining leaves nor dance;
They were remembering, I think,
The tall young trees of France.





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