Classic Poem

A BUSY woodpecker! What would you call
This monk of a fellow, tapping a tree
With little cells like a catacombed hall,
To bury his acorns in — what would you call
Such a curious monk as he?

Tucking his acorns away in their tomb
To feed upon, by and by, at his will —
Does he ever think of the hidden bloom
In the acorn's heart? Though shut in a tomb
There is life cherished there still.

Time is a woodpecker, crowding the cells
Of the catacombed earth with holy dead;
But there's a bud of life that swells
In the oak tree's might and it shatters the cells
As the soul when the life has fled.