Tree

The Poplar Field
by William Cowper

The poplars are felled, farewell to the shade
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade:
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.

Twelve years have elapsed since I first took a view
Of my favourite field, and the bank where they grew,
And now in the grass behold they are laid,
And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade.

The blackbird has fled to another retreat
Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat;
And the scene where his melody charmed me before
Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.

My fugitive years are all hasting away,
And I must ere long lie as lowly as they,
With a turf on my breast and a stone at my head,
Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.

'Tis a sight to engage me, if anything can,
To muse on the perishing pleasures of man;
Short-lived as we are, our enjoyments, I see,
Have a still shorter date, and die sooner than we.

Hurrah – the latest surveys apparently show that the British Isles have nearly the same amount of forest cover as at the time of the Norman Conquest, almost 1,000 years ago. We don't need The Return of the Jedi – the return of the trees is so much nicer!

The evening wind made such a disturbance just now, among some tall old elm-trees at the bottom of the garden, that neither my mother nor Miss Betsey could forbear glancing that way. As the elms bent to one another, like giants who were whispering secrets, and after a few seconds of such repose, fell into a violent flurry, tossing their wild arms about, as if their late confidences were really too wicked for their peace of mind, some weatherbeaten ragged old rooks'-nests, burdening their higher branches, swung like wrecks upon a stormy sea.

Balance like the tree with roots to the ground and branches to the sky.

Past and future in perfect tension.

I envy trees
their thriving roots
melt into the rich earth.
Their lush and lazy feet.
They rely on the ground.
Safe and strong.

I envy birds
their wings craving
southwards to the sea.
I watch them dive
through a metal sky
like bullets.

I envy roads,
roaming those green hills
with a destination
ahead.

I envy them
For I am not
earthbound and free
or heading somewhere.
My feet are off the ground
but I have no home to cling to.
And no place to go.

A Poison Tree
by William Blake

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears
Night and morning with my tears,
And I sunned it with smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright,
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine –

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning, glad, I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

a tree fulfills an important ecological function in the watercycle, as producer of oxygen, and living space for other plants and animals, yet also serves as discreet listener to human lament, respectively as meeting point before mating at times.

LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

A.E.Housman