Poets have written many poems about trees over the past few centuries. There is not a poem as lovely as a tree but some of these poets have come close.
- "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer
Kilmer's famous poem begins with these two lines everyone knows:"I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree."
- "Winter Trees" by Sylvia Plath
Plath's tree poem contains the lines:"They seed so effortlessly!
Tasting the winds, that are footless,
Waist-deep in history."
- "Loveliest of Trees" by A.E. Housman
Housman's tree poem begins with the lines:"Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide. "
- "The Sound of Tress" by Robert Frost
Frost's poem begins with the lines:"I wonder about the trees.
Why do we wish to bear
Forever the noise of these
More than another noise"
- "Tree At My Window" by Robert Frost
Frost's poem contains the lines:"But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,
And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have seen me when I was taken and swept
And all but lost."
- "A Drop Fell On The Apple Tree" by Emily Dickinson
Dickinson's poem begins with the lines:"A Drop fell on the Apple Tree -
Another - on the Roof -
A Half a Dozen kissed the Eaves -
And made the Gables laugh -"
- "La Fraisne: The Ash Wood of Malvern" by Ezra Pound
Pound's poem contains the lines:"I have curled mid the boles of the ash wood,
I have hidden my face where the oak
Spread his leaves over me, and the yoke
Of the old ways of men have I cast aside."
- "A Poison Tree" by William Blake
Blakes poem contains the lines:"And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright,
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,--"
- "An Apple Gathering" by Christina Rossetti
Rossetti's poem contains the lines:"I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree
And wore them all that evening in my hair:
Then in due season when I went to see
I found no apples there."
- "Christmas Trees" by Robert Frost
Frost's poem contains the lines:"He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas trees."
- "When Great Trees Fall" by Maya Angelou
Angelou's poem contains the lines:"When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear. "
- "Under the Greenwood Tree" by William Shakespeare
Shakespeare's poem begins:"Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And turn his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,"
- "The Two Trees" by William Butler Yeats
Yeats' poem contains the lines:"From joy the holy branches start,
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
The changing colours of its fruit
Have dowered the stars with merry light;"
- "The Mahogany Tree" by William Makepeace Thacker
Thackeray's poem contains the lines:"Weather without,
Shelter’d about
The Mahogany Tree."
- "The Planting of the Apple-Tree" by William Cullen Bryant
Bryant's planting poem contains the lines:"We plant, upon the sunny lea,
A shadow for the noontide hour,
A shelter from the summer shower,
When we plant the apple-tree."
- "Trees in the Garden" by D.H.Lawrence
Lawrence's poem contains the lines:"And the ghostly, creamy coloured little tree of leaves
white, ivory white among the rambling greens
how evanescent, variegated elder, she hesitates on the green grass "
