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 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 beechnuts
Split with crisp crackle to my great rejoicing.
Red are the wooded slopes below Shock Tavern,
Red is the bracken on the sandy Furze-field,
Red are the herds of deer by Bo-Pit Meadows,
The tawny deer that nightly through the beechwoods
Roar out their challenge, carrying their antlers
Proudly beneath the antlered moonlit branches.
I was a child, and heard the red deer’s challenge
Prowling and baying underneath my window,
Never a cry so haughty or so mournful.