Frances Shaw

The Tree:
A WIND of pain and longing

Strips my boughs of their spring-time.

I bow, and rock, and sweep the ground;

Then, in the silence, hold me listening.

Is this the after-calm in life,

Or is it death?

The Spirit Within:
I loved a warrior once,

And gave my heart in the spring-time.

Lonely I sought the whole world o’er

For one glance more. Unseeing, he passed by,

And then I laid me down within this tree

And slept.

The Wind:
Bow, bow your branches, O tree,

And sigh exceedingly that the Spirit within

May have memories of me.

For I am he who passed her by

In the spring-time.