an evil thing;
Sadder the trees grew with every shadowy wing--
Their shape enlarged, their arms quivered, their thought
Stirring in the leaves a silent anguish wrought.
"What are they thinking of, the evil trees,
Nod-nodding, standing in malignant ease?
Something against man's mortal heart was sworn
Once, when their dark Powers were conceived and born;
And in such fading or such lightless hours
The world is delivered to these plotting Powers."
No physical swift blow she dreaded, not
Lightning's quick mercy; but her heart grew hot
And cold and hot with uncomprehended sense
Of an assassin spiritual influence
Moving in the unmoving trees....
Till, as she stared,
Her eyes turned cowards at last, and no more dared.
Yet could she never rise and shut the door:
Perhaps those Powers would batter at the door,
And that were madness. So right through the house
She set the doors all wide when she could arouse
The body's energy to serve the mind.
Then the air would move, and any little wind
Would cleanse awhile the darkness and diminish
Her fear, and the dumb shadow-war would finish.

But it was not the trees, the birds, the moon;
Birds cease, months fly, green seasons wither soon:
Nature was constant all the seasons through,
Sinister, watchful, and a thick cloud drew
Over the mind when its simplicity
Challenged what seemed with thought of what must be....
She wondered, seeing how a child could play
Lightly in a shady field all day:
For in that golden, brief, benignant weather
When spring and summer calling run together
And the sun's fresh and hot, she saw deep guile
In the sweetness of that unconditioned smile.
Sweetness not sweetness was but indifference
Or wantonness disguised, to her grave sense;
And if she could have seen the things she felt
She'd looked for darkness, and lit shapes that knelt
Appealing, unregarded, at a high
Altar uprising from the pit to the sky....
Had the trees consciousness, with flowers and clouds
And winds that hung like thin clouds in the woods,
And stars and silence:--had they each a mind
Bending on hers, clear eyes on her eyes blind?
In the green dense heights--elm, oak, ash, yew or beech
She scarce saw--was there not a brain in each,
An undiscovered centre of quick nerves
By which (like man) the tree lives, masters, serves,
Waxes and wanes? Oppressed her mind would shrink
From thought, and into her trembling body sink.

Something of this had childhood taugh