Shadows (Howe)/A Tree

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A TREE
BLOWN all one way I saw it standForth from its fellows of the woodThat faced the sea-winds on the strand, A tall, unflinching brotherhood.
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Compassed by them, it might have grown In strength and symmetry like theirs,Not leaning landward now alone, Like one unfriended, bent with cares.
The winds had shaped it,—so I mused, And gathered round I seemed to seeThe forms of creatures, storm-blown, bruised, Resting beneath their kinsman tree.
Some were the men bent all one way By blasts of bitterness and wrong,Doomed to a single-handed fray, Too weak to meet a foe so strong.
The winds of poverty and loss Of all that man counts dear on earth—Whether the gold be gold or dross— Had shapen some to forms of dearth.
And those there were whose backs were bowed By breezes they had thought all fair; ​Prospered and loved too much, they showed Distorted as the ugliest there.
Alien to joy, to sorrow near, The subtler pains most subtly felt,All the sad company was here, Wherein misforming grief had dwelt.
And now the wind-bent tree is more Than tree unto mine inmost ken,For in its image by the shore I see the world-bent forms of men.

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