A Fragment

And the Woods, with gnarled and cruel
Hoary humour of the earth
Cry as at a barren Woman
Evil jests of death and birth

At the lean lamp-iron standing
Hideous as a hanging tree
Lonely amid nature's palace
Of her blazoned chivalry

But the sentinel of cities
Keeping watch o'er human things
Answered like a weaponed burgher
To those fair old laughing Kings.

When was the green blood of lilies
Shed upon a cross of shame
I have seen your King, and crowned him
In a beggar lewd and lame.

And when Man with his flame banner
Break your old tyrannic pales—
And where built a single spider
Laugh and weep a million tales.

This shall be your best of boasting
That some poet, poor of spine
When full fatted with our wisdom
Full and sated with our wine

Shall slink and make a treaty
With the tree-roots and the showers—
Weep against the grey-town mother
Fawn upon the scornful flowers

Lay his head among the roses
Where a quiet cuckoo sounds
And no sword made sharp for traitors
Hack him into meat for hounds.
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