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.

Credit

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

About this Poem

“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.