Poem by Dorothy Una Ratcliffe

The Pear-Tree

A rain of petals the pear-trees give,
As a pearly toll for the right to live.

Fragile petals that gently fall,
Like tears down the face of the old grey wall.

Around the bole, where the grasses grow,
Is a circle white as of melting snow.

An enchanted circle, flower-entwined,
Where hyacinth fingers the grasses bind.

The youngling thrushes soon learn how
To alight and shake the flowers from each bough.

The swallows tell their babes such tales!
That the tree is a ship with flower-white sails,

Anchored to Earth in the harbour of May;
But one moonless night she will sail away,

And a prim green tree will take the place
Of the phantom ship with its sails of lace.

Then in autumn the Orchardist Time will come,
And bear the fruit away to his home.

And later on he will heave a sigh,
That the little white tree some day must die.

So I write this verse to the little Pear-tree,
That both be remembered—it and me.

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2. Saadi and the Rose
3. Song of the Mists
4. The Moors in Summer
5. Satan and I

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