Poem by John Kenyon

Rufus’s Tree

O’ER the New Forest’s heath-hills bare,
  Down steep ravine, by shaggy wood,
A pilgrim wandered; questing where
  The relic-tree of Rufus stood.

Whence in our England’s day of old,
  Rushing on retribution’s wing,
The arrow—so tradition told—
  Glanced to the heart of tyrant-king.

Some monument he found, which spoke
  What erst had happened on the spot;
But for that old avenging oak,
  Decayed long since, he found it not.

Yet aye, where tyrants grind a land,
  Let trees like this be found to grow;
And never may a Tyrrel’s hand
  Be lacking there to twang the bow!

1. Flowers from Waterloo
2. Written at Schwytz
3. Experimentum Crucis
4. Silchester
5. Brook of Sanguinetto, near the Lake of Thrasymene

Print

1646 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version