Destroyers and Other Verses/Hid From Sight of Pasture Lands

by Henry Head

 

He . . .

Hid from sight of pasture lands,
Behind the Church a yew-tree stands,
Banished from the cheerful fields,
For the deadly fruit it yields.

Year by year it waxes tall,
Hemmed within the Church-yard wall;
For the Church must ever keep
Poisoned fruit from silly sheep.

Without a knot its branches grow,
Each to form a yeoman's bow,
Evergreen and never old,
For they spring from churchyard mould.

A solitary from the throng,
I fashion weapons for the strong:
But every thought within my head
Has its roots among the dead.