Ryton Firs

The Dream

All round the knoll, on days of quietest air,

Secrets are being told; and if the trees

Speak out — let them make uproar loud as drums —

'Tis secrets still, shouted instead of whisper'd.

There must have been a warning given once:

No tree, on pain of withering and sawfly,

To reach the slimmest of his snaky toes

Into this mounded sward and rumple it;

All trees stand back: taboo is on this soil. —