When first I found you in the forest's green, So tall and fair among the reaching spires, Your spreading branches' high sweet wind -- plucked lyres That gently breathed the soul of sound and scene, Your great trunk straight as plummet-fall, your clean Height rising effortless above the choirs Of lesser trees, I felt then sire of sires You were, the kingliest of all the trees in mien. But not the half of your nobility Did I in that first joyous worship find: Perception since has touched me and I see The scars beneath your branches -- I the blind Who thought growth easy. Wiser now, I know That sovereignty for all comes hard, comes slow. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO LEIGH HUNT, ESQ. by JOHN KEATS A SONG TO DAVID by CHRISTOPHER SMART THE FOUNTAIN OF PITY by HENRY BATAILLE HOW THE WINNING FOUR WEST HOME by WILLIAM ROSE BENET THE DEAD OF THE WILDERNESS by CHAIM NACHMAN BIALIK CLEVEDON VERSES: 5. STAR-STEERING by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN |