art, no hope, they knew, Than clutch the earth and seek the blue. ’Mid vegetable king and priest And stripling, I (the only beast) Was at the beast’s work, killing; hewed The stubborn roots across, bestrewed The glebe with the dislustred leaves, And bade the saplings fall in sheaves; Bursting across the tangled math A ruin that I called a path, A Golgotha that, later on, When rains had watered, and suns shone, And seeds enriched the place, should bear And be called garden. Here and there, I spied and plucked by the green hair A foe more resolute to live, The toothed and killing sensitive. He, semi-conscious, fled the attack; He shrank and tucked his branches back; And straining by his anchor-strand, Captured and scratched the rooting hand. I saw him crouch, I felt him bite; And straight my eyes were touched with sight. I saw the wood for what it was: The lost and the victorious cause, The deadly battle pitched in line, Saw silent weapons cross and shine: Silent defeat, silent assault, A battle and a burial vault.

Thick round me in the teeming mud Brier and fern strove to the blood: The hooked liana in his gin Noosed his reluctant neighbours in: There the green murderer throve and spread, Upon his smothering victims fed, And wantoned on his climbing coil. Contending roots fought for the soil Like frightened demons: with despair Competing branches pushed for air. Green conquerors from overhead Bestrode the bodies of their dead: The Caesars of the sylvan field, Unused to fail, foredoomed to yield: For in the groins of branches, lo! The cancers of the orchid grow. Silent as in the listed ring Two chartered wrestlers strain and cling; Dumb as by yellow Hooghly’s side The suffocating captives died; So hushed the woodland warfare goes Unceasing; and the silent foes Grapple and smother, strain and clasp Without a cry, without a gasp. Here also sound thy fans, O God, Here too thy banners move abroad: Forest and city, sea and shore, And the whole earth, thy threshing-floor! The drums of war, the drums of peace, Roll through our cities without cease, And all the iron halls of life Ring with the unremitting strife.

The common lot we scarce perceive. Crowds perish, we nor mark nor grieve: The bugle calls—we mourn a few! What corporal’s guard at Waterloo? What scanty hundreds more or less In the man-devouring Wilderness? What handful bled on Delhi ridge? —See, rather, London, on thy bridge The pale battalions trample by, Resolved to slay, resigned to die. Count, rather, all the maimed and dead In the unbrotherly war of bread. See, rather, under sultrier skies What vegetable Londons rise, And teem, and suffer without sound: Or in your tranquil garden ground, 

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