From: Marc Read <>
Newsgroups: uk.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Review of Wiederkehr's Tree Full of Angels
Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 18:46:45 +0100

Gareth McCaughan <> wrote:
>However, my real reason for this article is that it gives me
>an excuse to quote Ogden Nash.
>
>    I think that I will never see
>    A billboard lovely as a tree.
>    Indeed, unless the billboards fall
>    I'll never see a tree at all.

And here's Thomas Hardy in anti-sylvan mode;

Pale beech and pine so blue,
        Set in one clay,
Bough to bough cannot you
        Live out your day?
When the rains skim and skip,
Why mar sweet companionship,
Blighting with poison-drip
        Neighbourly spray?

Heart-halt and spirit-lame,
        City-opprest,
Unto this wood I came
        As to a nest;
Dreaming that sylvan peace
Offered the harrowed ease -
Nature a soft release
        From men's unrest.

But, having enetered in,
        Great growths and small
Show them to men akin -
        Combatants all!
Sycamore shoulders oak,
Bines the slim sapling yoke,
Ivy-spun halters choke
        Elms stout and tall.

Touches from ash, O wych,
        Sting you like scorn!
You, too, brave hollies, twitch
        Sidelong from thorn.
Even the rank poplars bear
Lothly a rival's air,
Cankering in black despair,
        If overborne.

Since, then, no grace I find
        Taught me of trees,
Turn I back to my kind,
        Worthy of these.
There at least smiles abound,
There discourse trills around,
There, now and then, are found
        Life-loyalties.

-- 
Marc Read  http://www.rauko.demon.co.uk <*>   <><
How many wicked crimes could be committed if everyone had the same face!
                                       -- Fermicus Maternus, _Mathesis_