Tree with a Bird in it

<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page52" name="page52"></SPAN>[52]</span></p> <div><SPAN name="h2H_4_0028" id="h2H_4_0028"></SPAN></div> <h2> <i>David Morton</i> </h2> <p class="quote"> (Who, being very polite, only thought it.)</p> <h3> SONNET: TREES ARE NOT SHIPS </h3> <div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> <p class="i2"> There is no magic in a living tree, </p> <p class="i2"> And, if they be not sea-gulls, none in birds: </p> <p class="i2"> My soul is seasick, and its only words </p> <p class="i2"> Murmur desire for things more like a sea. </p> <p class="i2"> In this dry landscape here there seems to be </p> <p class="i2"> No water, merely persons in large herds, </p> <p class="i2"> Who, by their long remarks, their arid girds, </p> <p class="i2"> Come from the Poetry Society. </p> </div> <div class="stanza"> <p class="i2"> What could be drier, where all things are dry? </p> <p class="i2"> What boots this bird, this pear-tree spreading wide? </p> <p class="i2"> Oh, make this bird they all discuss to pie, </p> <p class="i2"> Hew down this tree and shape its planks to ships, </p> <p class="i2"> Send them to sea with these folk nailed inside, </p> <p class="i2"> That I may have great sonnets on my lips! </p> </div> </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />