By, SCARBROUGH
FOR days I knew the secret of the tree
And then forgot, concerned with other things
Of winter living: Monday morning saw
The snow begin and seven days were rings
Of ice and fire around a moulted world,
Seven days were white as no days ever were,
White as swan feathers washed by peridot
Of waters from Peru. No skies were clear
For seven days; and January turned
Upon its pivot slowly. Now behind
The middle days. One troubled noon, I found
The hearthfire dead, time out of man’s poor mind.
Near to the wood lot for a day of grace,
I felled a tree reluctantly, afraid
Of some foreknowledge, ill-defined, that grew
A shapeful thing before my singing blade
Was done. But I, immersed in seven colds,
Remembered less than soon enough, and drove
One half-caught blow into the swirling heart.
And seven days of silence did not move,
And whiteness deepened seven times, until
The broken tree lay thunderously over,
And snowy wood was sweet, was summer-sweet,
With piercing, honeyed scent of some far clover.
For days I knew the secret of the tree
And then forgot. . . . The flower-heart is lying
Upon the snow; upon the snow in heaps
Of shining wings the judased bees are dying.