Poems (Cromwell)/Emblems
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
EMBLEMS
Where sweet ferns blow, where hemlock shadows lie,
Where peaks of pine o'er oak-twined branches reach,
In groves where bend the poplar and the beech,
Where emerald willows touch the emerald sky,
They come to us, the Lost Ones. Far and high
The winds among the trees lift muffled speech,
And tell the hidden past; we question each
Entreating form those winds identify.
Below the hill they huddle stone by stone,
The lost ones and the loved ones we have known,
Who followed, fearless, ways where beauty led;
But here upon the hilltop, winds intone
The foregone past. Oh, let us think instead,
The living trees are emblems of our dead!
Where peaks of pine o'er oak-twined branches reach,
In groves where bend the poplar and the beech,
Where emerald willows touch the emerald sky,
They come to us, the Lost Ones. Far and high
The winds among the trees lift muffled speech,
And tell the hidden past; we question each
Entreating form those winds identify.
Below the hill they huddle stone by stone,
The lost ones and the loved ones we have known,
Who followed, fearless, ways where beauty led;
But here upon the hilltop, winds intone
The foregone past. Oh, let us think instead,
The living trees are emblems of our dead!