How will the legend of the age of trees

Feel, when the last tree falls in England?

When the concrete spreads and the town conquers

The country’s heart; when contraceptive

Tarmac’s laid where farm has faded,

Tramline flows where slept a hamlet,

And shop-fronts, blazing without a stop from

Dover to Wrath, have glazed us over?

Simplest tales will then bewilder

The questioning children, “What was a chestnut?

Say what it means to climb a Beanstalk,

Tell me, grandfather, what an elm is.

What was Autumn? They never taught us.”

Then, told by teachers how once from mould

Came growing creatures of lower nature

Able to live and die, though neither

Beast nor man, and around them wreathing

Excellent clothing, breathing sunlight –

Half understanding, their ill-acquainted

Fancy will tint their wonder-paintings

Trees as men walking, wood-romances

Of goblins stalking in silky green,

Of milk-sheen froth upon the lace of hawthorn’s

Collar, pallor in the face of birchgirl.

So shall a homeless time, though dimly

Catch from afar (for soul is watchfull)

A sight of tree-delighted Eden.