Nightmare

The tree stood flowering in a dream:
Beside the tree a dark shape bowed:
As lightning glittered the axe-gleam
Across the wound in the broken wood

The tree cried out with human cries:
From its deepening hurt the blood ran:
The branches flowered with children’s eyes
And the dark murderer was a man

There came a fear which sighed aloud;
And with its fear the dream-world woke:
Yet in the day the tree still stood
Bleeding beneath the axe-man’s stroke