In all the grove, nor stream nor bird Nor aught beside my blows was heard, And the woods wore their noonday dress— The glory of their silentness. From the island summit to the seas, Trees mounted, and trees drooped, and trees Groped upward in the gaps. The green Inarboured talus and ravine By fathoms. By the multitude The rugged columns of the wood And bunches of the branches stood; Thick as a mob, deep as a sea, And silent as eternity. With lowered axe, with backward head, Late from this scene my labourer fled, And with a ravelled tale to tell, Returned. Some denizen of hell, Dead man or disinvested god, Had close behind him peered and trod, And triumphed when he turned to flee. How different fell the lines with me! Whose eye explored the dim arcade Impatient of the uncoming shade— Shy elf, or dryad pale and cold, Or mystic lingerer from of old: Vainly. The fair and stately things, Impassive as departed kings, All still in the wood’s stillness stood, And dumb. The rooted multitude Nodded and brooded, bloomed and dreamed, Unmeaning, undivined. It seemed No other 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.