The Song of the Oak
 

    THE Druids waved their golden knives
    And danced around the Oak
    When they had sacrificed a man;
    But though the learned search and scan
    No single modern person can
    Entirely see the joke.
    But though they cut the throats of men
    They cut not down the tree,
    And from the blood the saplings spring
    Of oak-woods yet to be.
        But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood,
        He rots the tree as ivy would,
        He clings and crawls as ivy would
        About the sacred tree.

    King Charles he fled from Worcester fight
    And hid him in the Oak;
    In convent schools no man of tact
    Would trace and praise his every act,
    Or argue that he was in fact
    A strict and sainted bloke.
    But not by him the sacred woods
    Have lost their fancies free,
    And though he was extremely big
    He did not break the tree.
        But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood,
        He breaks the tree as ivy would,
        And eats the woods as ivy would
        Between us and the sea.

    Great Collingwood walked down the glade
    And flung the acorns free,
    That oaks might still be in the grove
    As oaken as the beams above,
    When the great Lover sailors love
    Was kissed by Death at aea.
    But though for him the oak-trees fell
    To build the oaken ships,
    The woodman worshipped what he smote
    And honoured even the chips.
        But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood,
        He hates the tree as ivy would,
        As the dragon of the ivy would
        That has us in his grips.

        G. K. Chesterton