Stands the tree in the churchyard grounds

Ancient arms slowly spreading

Stands the tree with its grave surrounds

Roots in Hell reaching for Heaven

I have seen this tree on a summer’s night

In still, warm breezes softly rustling

A secret lovers’ place in the full moon’s light

Sitting ’neath its boughs, closely nestling

Ah, ’tis a joy, then, to see the old yew tree

Solidly planted in the Lord’s garden

Where sinners are sowed and lie like seeds

To be reaped at Judgement by Heaven’s guardian.

But I have seen this tree on darker nights

When goodly folk are safe abed

And will tell you a tale of nightmare sights

Of the tree a-laden with fruit of the dead!

’Twas in the deep of night as I did pass

That I stepped through the churchyard gate

To rest a while and lay me down upon the grass

Dear God! Forgive me this mistake I made!

With practiced step through the churchyard paths

I carefully made my way

By winding, melancholic routes, at last,

To reach a most familiar grave

Abhorrent, now, in my eyes is this hideous marble vision

Of my one true love, laid to rest

Carved by a mason’s chisel

Yet here I sat, among my thoughts, with a draught of poppy wine

Staring and wondering – weeping at her visage

I sat a while, the wine claimed me – I slept for some short time

When I awoke, ’twas to a most unholy image

As the bright moon passed behind black cloud

Bleak darkness then descended

And I beheld a damnéd crowd

Risen in semblance of life pretended

The white ghost of She my departed love

Passed by me – through me! – I did shed a tear

How could this be? Surely, God, She dwells above?

Yet from the tomb, rose Guinevere!

Countless hundreds then I saw, weeping silently

Though I could ken not why

I followed their procession to the tree

And to their sorrows, added mine

Oh, grim and black and hideous sight! Too much for Man to see

The tree no longer made of wood and leaf

But of their bodies buried beneath!

Here and there – a hand or foot, a torso or rotted face

Man and woman, old and young – each juxtaposed in place

Each screamed in silence, each writhed in torment as I, repulsed, did see

By the absorption of the buried dead, the growth of the Church yew tree!

Older is this mighty tree than the glorious fifth King Henry

But the flesh of buried thousands now forever stains its memory

And in the shadow of the tall church spire, I stood with fear transfixed

Yet could not suffer to raise my eyes up to the crucifix

For in the hour of my greatest need, when the light of Christ could banish

All fear and horror from my heart, my faith in Christ did vanish!

Can, then, this image of Suffering Christ, carved of gold and silver,

Truly, from Damnation, our eternal souls deliver?

Or are we made of baser things, mere meat and bone and sinew

With no majestic soul to save nor Heavenly God to cling to?

I assert we are but Nature’s beasts, yet with some cerebral powers

Which, when we die, return again – just borrowed for our Life’s short hours.