To a Withered Tree in June

Desolate tree! why are thy branches bare?
What hast thou done
To win strange winter from the summer air,
Frost from the sun?

Thou wert not churlish in thy palmier year
Unto the herd;
Tenderly gav’st thou shelter to the deer,
Home to the bird.

And ever once, the earliest of the grove,
Thy smiles were gay,
Opening thy blossoms with the haste of love
To the young May.

Then did the bees, and all the insect wings
Around thee gleam;
Feaster and darling of the gilded things
That dwell i’ the beam.

Thy liberal course, poor prodigal, is sped;
How lonely now!
How bird and bee, light parasites, have fled
The leafless bough!

“Tell me, sad tree, why are thy branches bare?
What hast thou done
To win strange winter from the summer air,
Frost from the sun?”

“Never,” replied that forest-hermit lone
(Old truth and endless!)
“Never for evil done, but fortune flown,
Are we left friendless.

“Yet wholly, nor for winter nor for storm
Doth Love depart!
We are not all forsaken till the worm
Creeps to the heart!

“Ah, nought without, within thee if decay,
Can heal or hurt thee.
Nor boots it, if thy heart itself betray,
Who may desert thee!”