Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IN MEMORY OF A GROVE, by VICTOR GUSTAVE PLARR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN MEMORY OF A GROVE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The town about my house upon the hill
Last Line: Who fells a london grove?
Subject(s): Change; Comfort; Forests; London; Nature; Woods


Recently felled upon waste ground at the Combe, Greenwich

The town about my house upon the hill
Has year by year ungraciously increased,
Yet has there been one sweet small franchise still
Where the mean houses ceased!

How beautiful you were, forgotten grove,
How classic and how tall, O little wood!
'Gainst the red winter sunsets, O my love,
How shapely forth you stood!

The birds of spring 'mid your green spaces whirred:
They could not leave the pleasant grove they knew;
And once, at dawn, a single time, I heard
The cuckoo's voice in you!

From what far woodland had he wierdly come,
True to what ancient impulse? Has man guessed
Whither, toward winter, nightingales fly home,
Where migrant swallows rest?

For years, when in deep autumn midnights drear
The storm from forth its country borders crossed,
Issuing from miles of infinite shadow where
The trees obscurely tossed,

All night the reboant cannonading wind
Along my little grove raved on and on,
As though it sang to Niflheim's gods reclined
The storm's dark arms upon.

Waking upon the middle of a dream,
You heard the splendid music and were glad;
You heard entangled branches hoarsely scream
As though some soul were sad!

The little child from her deep sleep awoke:
With eyes of awe she listened to that song:
Elves, gnomes, and daemons, gins and faëry folk
Swept through that air along!

But now those chanting branches, week by week,
And that poetic wood have been brought low:
With jingling harness-plates and jocund creak
The wains went to and fro,

Each burdened with its dead, and, day by day,
With a long human cry some tree stoopt down,
And still 'mong outraged nests an axe would play
To swell the unlovely town!

For him who burns a Raphael are there chains?
Do gyves gall those who spoil what wise men love?
Shall he make proof of sharp religious pains
Who fells a London grove?





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