Trees at Night

Slim Sentinels
Stretching lacy arms
About a slumbrous moon;
Black quivering
Silhouettes,
Tremulous,
Stencilled on the petal
Of a bluebell;
Ink sputtered
On a robin’s breast;
The jagged rent
Of mountains
Reflected in a
Stilly sleeping lake;
Fragile pinnacles
Of fairy castles;
Torn webs of shadows;
And
Printed ’gainst the sky—
The trembling beauty
Of an urgent pine.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on February 13, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“Trees at Night” appeared in Opportunity III, no. 29 (May, 1925), where it received honorable mention in the poetry section of Opportunity’s first ever literary contest.