The Tree
I stood still and was a tree amid the wood,
Knowing the truth of things unseen before;
Of Daphne and the laurel bough
And that god-feasting couple old
That grew elm-oak amid the wold.
'Twas not until the gods had been
Kindly entreated, and been brought within
Unto the hearth of their heart's home
That they might do this wonder thing;
Nathless I have been a tree amid the wood
And many a new thing understood
That was rank folly to my head before.
This is an early poem by the U.S. poet, Ezra Pound.
Pound was relying on two tales from Ovid's Metamorphoses above all: The myth of Daphne and Apollo and the lovely story of Baucis and Philemon.
The story of Daphne and Apollo is a cautionary tale warning against the danger of pride. Apollo, the god of the Sun, music, poetry, medicine, and more, was also a warrior and divinely skilled at archery. In Ovid's version of the myth, Apollo is inflated with his own power and skill and scoffs at young Eros (Cupid), the son of Aphrodite (Venus), the goddess of love. Eros uses his arrows to strike men and women in the heart, causing them to fall in love. Caveat! Eros has two types of arrow: those with a gold tip inspire love, and those with a lead tip inspire loathing. Eros has the form of a young boy, and Apollo mocks him, telling him not to play with a man's weapon. To teach Apollo a lesson, Eros shoots him with one of his arrows--a gold-tipped one--and Daphne with another--a lead-tipped arrow. Apollo is consumed by love and pursues Daphne, but in abhorrence she flees. He gains! She flees on desperately, but sees Apollo is gaining on her, and pleads to the gods to save her. Suddenly, she can not run; she is rooted to the spot (this is where the colloquial phrase comes from); her skin is turning to bark; Daphne is metamorphosing into a laurel tree. Apollo can do nothing to stop the transformation, and soon she is entirely a tree. But Apollo still loves her, and uses his healing power to keep her leaves youthful and green year-round. And ever after, the laurel tree is beloved of Apollo and he takes it as his symbol. So much so, that the winners in the Olympic Games in ancient times were rewarded with crowns woven of laurel leaves.
The story of Baucis and Philemon is a lovely tale. Zeus (Jupiter) and Hermes (Mercury) come to Earth and take the form of wandering travelers. They are rejected by all the people in a village they visit except for a poor old couple, Baucis and her husband Philemon (whose name means "loving" or "one who loves"). Although the old couple are very poor, they give all they have to their guests. Zeus and Hermes are touched by the generosity and kindness of the old couple, but determine to destroy the other people of the village with a flood. Which they do. The gods thus having revealed themselves, Baucis and Philemon dedicate themselves to their service as keepers of a temple. Zeus offers them reward for their goodness, but all they ask for is the gift that they might die together, so that neither should live on alone, which Zeus grants--but in his own way. Rather than dying, when their time comes, the two metamorphose into two trees, a linden and an oak, and those two trees grow entwining with each other, their love living on after them.
In Ezra Pound's poem, the poet's persona visits a quiet wood and sees the forest through eyes informed by Ovid's work. The forest is alive with love--both passionate and importunate and patient and abiding. As he sits and observes the forest, he feels the numinous and the real intermingle; he reflects on Nature and love and in his quiet, outward-looking introspection has an epiphany and comes to understand nature and love in ways that had seemed foolish to him before.
Ezra Pound had an ear for lyric beauty, and this poem is a masterpiece. The fluidity of the rhythm, and the cadence of the assonances are exquisite. It expresses a Romantic appreciation of love and pantheistic Nature, and yet at the same time, an American pragmatism and straightforwardness that twine and resolve in one, just as the elm and the oak (he changed the linden to an elm for his poem) twine and resolve into one.
It is a poem about a man unafraid to see what others disdain or fail to grasp, and a man who is willing, like Daphne, Baucis, and Philemon, to be transformed by love and Nature. As in their tales, contrary qualities harmonize within himself, and the poet's persona undergoes a sea-change that leaves him wiser and more at one in his many-mindedness.
Definitions:
"wold"--a high, wild, open area of rolling hills (in England, also called a "moor")
"entreated"--treated (the word usually means to ask, plead
"wonder thing"--wondrous thing
"nathless"--nonetheless
"rank folly"--total foolishness
