Alfred Lord Tennyson (
1809-
1892)
Old
yew, which graspest at the stones
That name the underlying dead,
Thy fibres net the dreamless head,
Thy roots are wrapped about the bones.
The seasons bring the flower again,
And bring the
firstling to the flock;
And in the dusk of thee the clock
Beats out the little lives of men.
O, not for thee the glow, the bloom,
Who changest not in any gale,
Nor branding summer suns avail
To touch thy thousand years of
gloom:
And gazing on thee, sullen tree,
Sick for thy stubborn hardihood,
I seem to fail from out my
blood
And grow incorporate into thee.