I HOED a rocky earth in dream
Bending in a red moon's gleam,
My bitter strength, at every shock,
Cracked myself, and not the rock.

Then to my ear my daemon spoke:
‘You are the rock, and I the stroke;
At your bidding and your call
I break you till I've broken all.’

Dark and barren long I lay
While the red moon sank away.
My daemon touched: I turned to see:
From the rock uprose a tree.

Without a stroke, without a sound,
Like a wizard from the ground,
Like a fountain's living pole
Lifted magical and whole.

It had a flower like the moon,
Within it sang a bird unknown
'Mid silver buds on branches wide
As the stars that it did hide.

You shall hear the iron stroke,
You shall see the dinted rock,
But the singing and the tree
Why should you or hear or see?