Excerpts from "The Dreamer of the Root"
...
Yet lying there a long while
I beheld, sorrowing, the Healer's Tree
Till it seemed that I heard how it broke silence,
Best of wood, and began to speak:
'Over that long remove my mind ranges
Back to the holt where I was hewn down;
From my own stem I was struck away,
dragged off by strong enemies,
Wrought into a roadside scaffold.
They made me a hoist for wrongdoers.
The soldiers on their shoulders bore me
until on a hill-top they set me up;
Many enemies made me fast there.
Then I saw, marching toward me,
Mankind's brave King;
He came to climb upon me.
I dared not break or bend aside
Against God's will, though the ground itself
Shook at my feet. Fast I stood,
Who falling could have felled them all.
Almighty God ungirded Him,
eager to mount the gallows,
Unafraid in the sight of many:
He would set free mankind.
I shook when His arms embraced me
but I durst not bow to ground,
Stoop to Earth's surface.
Stand fast I must.
I was reared up, a road.
I raised the great King,
Liege lord of the Heavens,
dared not lean from the true.
They drove me through with dark nails:
on me are the deep wounds manifest,
Wide-mouthed hate-dents.
I durst not harm any of them.
How they mocked at us both!
I was all moist with blood
Sprung from the Man's side
after He sent forth His soul....
