TEN O'CLOCK NO MORE

The wind has thrown

The boldest of trees down.

Now disgraced it lies,

Naked in spring beneath the drifting skies,

Naked and still.

It was the wind

So furious and blind

That scourged half England through,

Ruining the fairest where most fair it grew

By dell and hill.

And springing here,

The black clouds dragging near,

Against this lonely elm

Thrust all his strength to maim and overwhelm

In one wild shock.

As in the deep

Satisfaction of dark sleep

The tree her dream dreamed on,

And woke to feel the wind's arms round her thrown

And her head rock.

And the wind raught

Her ageing boughs and caught

Her body fast again.

Then in one agony of age, grief, pain,

She fell and died.

Her noble height,

Branches that loved the light,

Her music and cool shade,

Her memories and all of her is dead

On the hill side.

But the wind stooped.

With madness tired, and drooped

In the soft valley and slept.

While morning strangely round the hush'd tree crept

And called in vain.

The birds fed where

The roots uptorn and bare

Thrust shameful at the sky;

And pewits round the tree would dip and cry

With the old pain.

“Ten o'clock' s gone!”

Said sadly every one.

And mothers looking thought

Of sons and husbands far away that fought:—

And looked again.