“It is sad that so many of worth,

   Still in the flesh,” soughed the yew,

“Misjudge their lot whom kindly earth

      Secludes from view.

   “They ride their diurnal round

   Each day-span’s sum of hours

In peerless ease, without jolt or bound

      Or ache like ours.

   “If the living could but hear

   What is heard by my roots as they creep

Round the restful flock, and the things said there,

      No one would weep.”

   “‘Now set among the wise,’

   They say: ‘Enlarged in scope,

That no God trumpet us to rise

      We truly hope.’”

   I listened to his strange tale

   In the mood that stillness brings,

And I grew to accept as the day wore pale

      That show of things.