Page:Songs before sunrise (IA beforesunrisongs00swinrich).pdf/99

 The tree many-rooted That swells to the sky With frondage red-fruited, The life-tree am I; In the buds of your lives is the sap of my leaves: ye shall live and not die.

But the Gods of your fashion That take and that give, In their pity and passion That scourge and forgive, They are worms that are bred in the bark that falls off; they shall die and not live.

My own blood is what stanches The wounds in my bark; Stars caught in my branches Make day of the dark, And are worshipped as suns till the sunrise shall tread out their fires as a spark.

Where dead ages hide under The live roots of the tree, In my darkness the thunder Makes utterance of me; In the clash of my boughs with each other ye hear the waves sound of the sea.