A Heritage of TreesEnglish Poems Index
A Heritage of Trees :
I saw a man
Attack a tree today
The road from
Mysore
To Ooty
About twenty miles along it
There you'll see a tragic sight.
A line of noble trees
Mutilated: branches ripped
Untimely from their trunks,
The trunks themselves
Wounded, lacerated
Some live attenuated
Cripples some
Have died :
Their sides
Browned by the sun
Their scabs and scars
Defy repair.
Those noble trees
Planted long since
By some sweet hand, some Ismail
Visveswaraya or unknown :
Or royal patronage :
Let them come now from some
More peaceful shade
To look once more
On their life's work.
Trees for the people?
Let all enjoy them
Hack them cut them up
So that the fires
That cook the village
Food
Shall burn more hot.
Trees are our heritage
And ash so holy.
By David Horsburgh
About The Poem :
This poem A Heritage of Trees is not a rhyming poem. There is no rhyme scheme. The lines are short and there is no metre. No line has a set number of beats. Compare this poem with some of the rhyming poems in this site. Note that in poetry some words can be left out : e.g. Attack a tree today (on) the road from Mysore to Ooty.
Can you say why the sentences are broken up as they are? You will have to read the poem a number of times to feel how the lines (and the thoughts) flow.
Words to Know :
Attenuated : reduced in force or value
Heritage : what is or may be left to us by someone who has lived before : an inheritance
Ismail : the son of Abraham, mentioned in the Bible, the Torah and the Koran. The Koran reports that Abraham and Isma'il raised the foundations of the House. The 'house' is the Kaaba in Mecca.
Lacerated : cut roughly
Long since : a long time ago
More peaceful shade : heaven
Mutilated : cut off : having limbs (branches) cut off
Royal patronage : the support given to others by a ruler
Tragic : sad : distressing
Untimely : not at the right time : too early : the trees are still living
Visveswaraya : Sir M. Visveswaraya, who became the Dewan of Mysore in 1912. An engineer, he was the true architect of modern Mysore.
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