Mortality
In the green quiet wood where I was used,
In summer, to a welcome calm and dark,
I found the threat of murder introduced
By scars of white paint on the wrinkled bark.
How few old friends were to be spared! And now
I see my friends with new eyes here in town
Men as trees walking, and on every brow
A pallid scar, and all to be cut down.
---
Gerald Gould (1885-1936)
from Beauty, the Pilgrim, 1927
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the European Union]
Gerald Gould biography
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