“Swank! swank! swank!” rang the blows of that stalwort blacksmith, and a smutty faced lad that he called “son!” “Son!” oh how I wished I had his throat in my strong and well-knit muscles— I would have torn it as the wild wolf tears the throat of the deer— But as for the stalwort blacksmith, I was afraid of him— So I lay and let him smite me. Then I felt myself beaten into a shape—the welcome shape of the axe— And I laughed, For the axe was made for slaughter— Then I was taken from the burly blacksmith’s, And keen, clear, flashing teeth of steel Were given me, And I laughed again, For I thought that if I had a chance how I would bite in the heart of that miner, That miner, gaunt, naked and strong! And the smutty-faced boy whom the burly blacksmith Called “son.” But the burly blacksmith himself, I would not bite him, No, not even were his veins beneath the gripe of my clear, keen, flashing teeth, For I loved the burly blacksmith, The burly, stalwort blacksmith, With his apron of leather and arm that could fell a buffalo. And then I was hung up in a village store; A paltry village store, amidst onions, and turnips and tape, To wait my destined doom. I was born in the pleasant wood; (Thus commenced the helve, Not rough and fierce and hateful Like the iron, but modest and mild) I was born in the pleasant wood; I was an arm of the sturdy oak; And I bore a wealth of green leaves In the long bright summer days, Where the sunlight loved to sparkle and the rain-drops loved to hum— And I bent a green roof o’er the nest of the merry bird. Oh, I was happy! I danced in the liquid wind, And murmured my joy at all times; In the golden dawn, and sunny noontide; In the crimson evening and beneath the seraphic moon; Yea, I was happy! The oak loved me; for I was his sturdiest arm, And I bore my leaves like an emerald shield. Oh, I was happy! But my time came. The woodman saw me, and he looked at the handle of his axe— The woodman saw me, and grasped the handle of his axe— The woodman saw me, and before I could shrink behind my emerald shield, Ay, even before I could call upon my father oak To bend his green plume and protect his son, I was crashing on the earth— Oh! I fell headlong to the moss, and I lay without motion, As the woodman, As the whistling woodman, As the free and careless woodman, Rent from me my emerald shield, and made me bare As a bird just emerged from its shell. And then he shaped me into a thick stick, A thick white stick, with his wood-knife, And carried me to the village store, And bargained me off, me, the strong arm of the oak, That wore an emerald shield, and made arrows of all the beams, And flashed and murmured at dawn, in the red eve,