Under The Oak by D.H. Lawrence — Read

You, if you were sensible, / When I tell you the stars flash signals, each one dreadful, / You would not turn and answer me / "The night is wonderful."

Even you, if you knew / How this darkness soaks me through and through, and infuses / Unholy fear in my vapour, you would pause to distinguish / What hurts, from what amuses.

For I tell you / Beneath this powerful tree, my whole soul's fluid / Oozes away from me as a sacrifice steam / At the knife of a Druid.

Again I tell you, I bleed, I am bound with withies, / My life runs out. / I tell you my blood runs out on the floor of this oak, / Gout upon gout.

Above me springs the blood-born mistletoe / In the shady smoke. / But who are you, twittering to and fro / Beneath the oak?

What thing better are you, what worse? / What have you to do with the mysteries / Of this ancient place, of my ancient curse? / What place have you in my histories?