Chapter V: Part III: The Lawn

THE THREE OAKS

There are three ancient oaks,
That grow near to each other.

They lift their branches
High as beckoning
With outstretched arms,
For some one to come and stand
Under the canopy of their leaves.

Once long ago I remember
As I lay in the very centre,
Between them:
A rotten branch suddenly fell
Near to me.

I will not go back to those oaks:
Their branches are too black for my liking.

AN OAK

Hoar mistletoe
Hangs in clumps
To the twisted boughs
Of this lonely tree.

Beneath its roots I often thought treasure was buried:
For the roots had enclosed a circle.

But when I dug beneath them,
I could only find great black ants
That attacked my hands.

When at night I have the nightmare,
I always see the eyes of ants
Swarming from a mouldering box of gold.

ANOTHER OAK

Poison ivy crawls at its root,
I dare not approach it,
It has an air of hate.

One would say a man had been hanged to its branches,
It holds them in such a way.

The moon gets tangled in it,
A distant steeple seems to bark
From its belfry to the sky.

Something that no one ever loved,
Is buried here:
Some grey shape of deadly hate,
Crawls on the back fence just beyond.

Now I remember--once I went
Out by night too near this oak,
And a red cat suddenly leapt
From the dark and clawed my face.

THE OLD BARN

Owls flap in this ancient barn
With rotted doors.

Rats squeak in this ancient barn
Over the floors.

Owls flap warily every night,
Rats' eyes gleam in the cold moonlight.

There is something hidden in this barn,
With barred doors.

Something the owls have torn,
And the rats scurry with over the floors.

THE WELL

The well is not used now,
Its waters are tainted.

I remember there was once a man went down
To clean it.
He found it very cold and deep,
With a queer niche in one of its sides,
From which he hauled forth buckets of bricks and dirt.

THE TREES

When the moonlight strikes the tree-tops,
The trees are not the same.

I know they are not the same,
Because there is one tree that is missing,
And it stood so long by another,
That the other, feeling lonely,
Now is slowly dying too.

When the moonlight strikes the tree-tops
That dead tree comes back;
Like a great blue sphere of smoke
Half buoyed, half ravelling on the grass,
Rustling through frayed Branches,
Something eerily cheeping through it,
Something creeping through its shade.

VISION

You who flutter and quiver
An instant
Just beyond my apprehension;
Lady,
I will find the white orchid for you,
If you will but give me
One smile between those wayward drifts of hair.

I will break the wild berries that loop themselves over the marsh-pool,
For your sake,
And the long green canes that swish against each other,
I will break, to set in your hands.
For there is no wonder like to you,
You who flutter and quiver
An instant
Just beyond my apprehension.