Classic Poem

Now know I why you love tall poplar trees
That sway and shimmer with the gentlest breeze,
But ever more and more aspire
To lift their fluttering pennons higher.
Candles they are that grow in burning;
Desires from their ends never turning:
Earth's swords thrust out to cleave the air;
Untrammelled thoughts that calmly dare
Behold truth bare.
From reedy shoots, up, up they spring,
Single and straight as lark on wing,
As though they could not rest content
So far below their native element,
The free, unclouded sky.
All other trees—the elm, the beech,
Oak, ash, and sycamore—have common speech
And live in strenuous democracies:
Fight one another: clasp each other's knees
And warring, die;
Only the poplar in her pride and grace
Seeks nothing but the kiss of heaven's face,
And to that end
All her desires doth bend. . . .
Ah! Now I know why you love poplar trees;
Beyond the borders of the common wood, you tower, one of these.