THE WIND IN TOWN TREES

What is it says the breeze

In London streets to-day

Unto the troubled trees

Whose shadows strew the way,

Whose leaves are all a-flutter?

“You are wild!” the rascal cries.

The green tree beats its wings

And fills the air with sighs.

“Wild! Wild!” the rascal sings.

“But your feet are in the gutter!”

Men pass beneath the trees

Walking the pavement grey,

They hear the whisperings tease

And at the word he utters

Their hearts are green and gay.

Then like the gay, green trees,

They beat proud wings to fly,

But, like the fluttering trees,

Their footprints mark the gutters

Until the beggars die.

Flower-like and shy,

You stand, sweet mortal, at the river’s brim:

With what unconscious grace

Your limbs to some strange law surrendering

Which lifts you clear of our humanity!

Now would I sacrifice

Your breathing, warmth, and all the strange romance

Of living, to a moment. Ere you break

The greater thing than you, I would my eyes

Were basilisk to turn you into stone.

So should you be the world’s inheritance.

And souls of unborn men should draw their breath

From mortal you, immortalised in Death.