Oh My Dear Maple, Frozen Stiff And Bare...

Oh my dear maple, frozen stiff and bare,

Why do you stand bending in the blizzard there?

Have you seen a vision? Have you heard a babble?

Just like you are out for an idle ramble.

Like a tipsy warden,  walking  on the roadside,

You have stuck in snowdrift, hit by burning frost-bite.

I myself quite often lose my whereabouts,

Cannot find my house after drinking bouts.

Now I  see a willow, now some other trees, and

Sing them songs about summer in a blizzard.

I would think myself  to be a sort of maple,

Not a bare maple - verdant as in April.

And forgetting virtue, drunk as  drowned mouse,

I would hug a birch-tree like somebody"s spouse.

1925