There were trees that spring-- One on a little hill, One in a small, green field. One stood a leaf-stripped thing; One had begun to fill With leaves from shoots unsealed, With purple flowers along the wood-- So those trees stood. One bore up a Form On the clean branches nailed, Ineffable in peace: One bent as if a storm In its descent had trailed Down the red blossom-fleece; And where the boughs most sullen hung A crisped form swung. One the Tree of Life-- Both near Jerusalem-- And one of Death the Tree! One bore a bitter strife; A cry came from its stem: “Thou hast forsaken Me!” The other heard no sound at all, Save a dumb fall. Both were gibbet-trees-- From one was said, “Forgive! They know not what they do.” One rocked in purple breeze Despair, that would not live, Nor trust forgiveness:--no! And from the wreathèd branches fell A soul to Hell. ONE REED Shaken by winds to sigh, to song, One reed amid the misty throng That to a reed-bed, Christ, belong-- One reed among Those who are reeds to every wind, Now in Thy Presence, now declined: Cut me away from dim caprice, And sheer me from the reedy fleece! Let my poor, shivering motion cease, Dead of Thy peace: A reed and no more shaken--yea, No more a slant sedge-reed I pray! No more! But, Mercy infinite, Let me not be a reed to smite The thorns within Thy forehead tight, And urge to sight Thy sacred Blood and urge Thy pain! Better the devious winds again! Upon Thy lips let me but lay Such sour, dun vintage as I may; Push not the sponge-tipped spear away, But let it stay! Oh, let the bitter draught through me Bring to Thy Cross some lenity! CRYING OUT In the Orient heat He stands-- Heat that makes the palm-trees dim, Palms that do not shelter Him, As under the fierce blue He stands with outstretched hands. As a lizard of the rocks, Under furnace-sun He stays; Earth beneath Him in a daze Is faint and trembling, spite of rocks, in shadeless blocks. He among them mid the blue, With a mouth wide open held, As a lion-fountain welled Under the spaciousness of blue, the heat throbs through. Wide His mouth as lion’s, set Wide for waters of a fount! Through them words of challenge mount, Great words that cry through them, wide-set, where men have met. “Ye the thirsty come to Me!” So He cries with lion-roar: “Ye will thirst not any more. Come!” and He stands for all to see, and offers free.