A fir-tree falls desperately in love with a brook, but the brook refuses it, saying it’s already pledged to the sea. Instead of letting go, the tree spends a whole season mourning, then feels a wild joy when marked for cutting — because it sees a way to follow the beloved at last. The tree becomes a ship’s mast, endures the violence of being shaped and tossed by waves, and clings to the idea that any touch, even a destructive one, is a form of loving union. When the ship sinks and the fir-tree drifts forever in the water, the brook’s voice — now indistinguishable from the sea — finally claims it in an eternal, deathly embrace. The poem carries a haunting, obsessive mood, blending ecstasy and pain into a single dark current where devotion becomes a kind of beautiful ruin.
The Fir-Tree and the Brook — Summary
The Fir-Tree looked on stars, but loved the Brook! "O silver-voiced! if thou wouldst wait, My love can bravely woo." All smiles forsook The brook's white face. "Too late! Too late! I go to wed the sea. I know not if my love would curse or bless thee. I may not, dare not, tarry to caress thee, Oh, do not follow me!
The Fir-Tree moaned and moaned till spring; Then laughed in manic joy to feel Early one day, the woodsmen of the King Sign him with a sign of burning steel, The first to fall. "Now flee Thy swiftest, Brook! Thy love may curse or bless me, I care not, if but once thou dost caress me, O Brook, I follow thee!
All torn and bruised with mark of adze and chain, Hurled down the dizzy slide of sand, Tossed by great waves in ecstsy of pain, And rudely thrown at last to land, The Fir-Tree heard: "Oh, see With what fierce love it is I must caress thee! I warned thee I might curse, and never bless thee, Why didst thou follow me?
All stately set with spar and brace and rope, The Fir-Tree stood and sailed and sailed. In wildest storm when all the ship lost hope, The Fir-Tree never shook nor quailed, Nor ceased from saying, "Free Art thou, O Brook! But once thou hast caressed me; For life, for death, thy love has cursed or blessed me; Behold, I follow thee!"
Lost in a night, and no man left to tell, Crushed in the giant iceberg's play, The ship went down without a song, a knell. Still drifts the Fir-Tree night and day, Still moans along the sea A voice: "O Fir-Tree! thus must I possess thee; Eternally, brave love, will I caress thee, Dead for the love of me!"