TREE WORSHIP.

My room has great windows, Clear water-like windows Awash with golden sun; My books shine green and red, And the bed is white as milk; The rugs flecked like a brook, And the shelf holds a silver bowl And a candle of honey-gold. But I look out of the room, Away from the wine-red books, To one gaunt shag-bark tree That stands playing itself Like a swaying cloud-keyed Harp, Or writing upon the sky, With a myriad twig-keen pens. My room has a cushion, soft As sea foam on the sand; But I look out on the tree— It draws me, holds me, speaks, And does not speak; is still, Dumb, yet singing and glad. And I know that I, in the room, Silken and warm and soft, Am as ignorant as the man Who sat in a Dacian cave, Clad in blood-soaked skins, Gnawing at roots and nuts. A man who looked at a tree And feared it, and felt its spell; And bowed him down in awe, And sacrificed, and prayed; And was subject to the Tree, Thinking it might be—God!