AS the long desert downs you pass between, That French Sahara, bleached sands far and wide 'Mid the sere grass, and water ditches green, You see no tree, but pine with wounded side. For, to deprive him of his resinous tears, Man, Nature's murderer, slave of avarice, Who only lives by what he kills and tears, In his pained trunk cuts a large orifice. Ne'er grudging that his life-blood flows away, The pine his balsam yields till all is lost, And holds himself upright in full array, Like wounded soldier dying at his post. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SEVEN TWILIGHTS: 6 by CONRAD AIKEN WHEN I WROTE A LITTLE by HAYDEN CARRUTH SERVICE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON BRER RABBIT, YOU'S DE CUTES' OF 'EM ALL by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON ADMETUS; TO MY FRIEND RALPH WALDO EMERSON by EMMA LAZARUS IN A SWEDISH GRAVEYARD by EMMA LAZARUS |