I cut it down, because it blocked the light:
And now the sunshine streams into the room
At noonday; but, at closing in of night,
I hear a ghostly murmur in the gloom—

A ghostly wind that stirs a spectral tree
To scornful whispering of phantasmal boughs—
O foolish man, who thought to murder me;
My live roots still run under your frail house.

And when its brittle walls are overthrown,
I'll lift to sunny skies a fresh green head;
And cast my shadow on the mouldering stone
That marks your grave among the hopeless dead.