THE MASTER AND THE LEAVES

We are budding, Master, budding,

We of your favourite tree;

March drought and April flooding

Arouse us merrily,

Our stemlets newly studding;

And yet you do not see!

We are fully woven for summer

In stuff of limpest green,

The twitterer and the hummer

Here rest of nights, unseen,

While like a long-roll drummer

The nightjar thrills the treen.

We are turning yellow, Master,

And next we are turning red,

And faster then and faster

Shall seek our rooty bed,

All wasted in disaster!

But you lift not your head.

- “I mark your early going,

And that you'll soon be clay,

I have seen your summer showing

As in my youthful day;

But why I seem unknowing

Is too sunk in to say!”