How do I love you, beech-trees, in the autumn, <br />Your stone-grey columns a cathedral nave <br />Processional above the earth's brown glory! <br /> <br />I was a child, and I loved the knurly tangle <br />Of roots that coiled above a scarp like serpents, <br />Where I might hide my treasure with the squirrels. <br /> <br />I was a child, and splashed my way in laughter <br />Through drifts of leaves, where underfoot the beech-nuts <br />Split with crisp crackle to my great rejoicing. <br /> <br />Red are the beechen slopes below Shock Tavern, <br />Red is the bracken on the sandy Furze-field, <br />Red are the stags and hinds by Bo-Pit Meadows, <br /> <br />The rutting stags that nightly through the beechwoods <br />Bell out their challenge, carrying their antlers <br />Proudly beneath the antlered autumn branches. <br /> <br />I was a child, and heard the red deer's challenge <br />Prowling and belling underneath my window, <br />Never a cry so haughty or so mournful.<br /><br />Vita Sackville-West<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/beechwoods-at-knole-2/
