Beechwoods at Knole

How do I love you, beech-trees, in the autumn,

Your stone-grey columns a cathedral nave

Processional above the earth's brown glory!  

I was a child, and I loved the knurly tangle

Of roots that coiled above a scarp like serpents,

Where I might hide my treasure with the squirrels.

I was a child, and splashed my way in laughter

Through drifts of leaves, where underfoot the beech-nuts

Split with crisp crackle to my great rejoicing.  

Red are the beechen slopes below Shock Tavern,

Red is the bracken on the sandy Furze-field,

Red are the stags and hinds by Bo-Pit Meadows,

The rutting stags that nightly through the beechwoods

Bell out their challenge, carrying their antlers

Proudly beneath the antlered autumn branches.

I was a child, and heard the red deer's challenge

Prowling and belling underneath my window,

Never a cry so haughty or so mournful.