Saturday, February 08, 2014
A Sound Appalling
Robert Bridges (1844-1930), Shorter Poems (London: Geo. Bell & Sons, 1890), pp. 73-74 (Book IV, No. XII, untitled):
Ivan Shishkin (1832-1898), Cutting of Wood
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The hill pines were sighing,
O'ercast and chill was the day:
A mist in the valley lying
Blotted the pleasant May.
But deep in the glen's bosom
Summer slept in the fire
Of the odorous gorse-blossom
And the hot scent of the brier.
A ribald cuckoo clamoured,
And out of the copse the stroke
Of the iron axe that hammered
The iron heart of the oak.
Anon a sound appalling,
As a hundred years of pride
Crashed, in the silence falling;
And the shadowy pine-trees sighed.
Labels: arboricide
