Charlotte Mew wrote “The Trees are Down” in the 1920s after watching workers saw down plane trees in London’s Euston Square Gardens. The poem’s speaker poignantly narrates the trees’ slow death while positioning them within a wider network of living things. This free verse poem has a distinctive structure characterized by long, sprawling lines that resemble roots and branches. Environmental concerns are a common thread throughout Mew’s body of poetic work, which often examines the complexities of humankind’s relationship with nature. "The Trees are Down" appears in The Rambling Sailor, Mew’s posthumous collection of poetry, which was published in 1929.
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The Full Text of “The Trees are Down”
—and he cried with a loud voice:
Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees—
(Revelation)
1They are cutting down the great plane-trees at the end of the gardens.
2For days there has been the grate of the saw, the swish of the branches as they fall,
3The crash of the trunks, the rustle of trodden leaves,
4With the ‘Whoops’ and the ‘Whoas,’ the loud common talk, the loud common laughs of the men, above it all.
5I remember one evening of a long past Spring
6Turning in at a gate, getting out of a cart, and finding a large dead rat in the mud of the drive.
7I remember thinking: alive or dead, a rat was a god-forsaken thing,
8But at least, in May, that even a rat should be alive.
9The week’s work here is as good as done. There is just one bough
10 On the roped bole, in the fine grey rain,
11 Green and high
12 And lonely against the sky.
13 (Down now!—)
14 And but for that,
15 If an old dead rat
16Did once, for a moment, unmake the Spring, I might never have thought of him again.
17It is not for a moment the Spring is unmade to-day;
18These were great trees, it was in them from root to stem:
19When the men with the ‘Whoops’ and the ‘Whoas’ have carted the whole of the whispering loveliness away
20Half the Spring, for me, will have gone with them.
21It is going now, and my heart has been struck with the hearts of the planes;
22Half my life it has beat with these, in the sun, in the rains,
23 In the March wind, the May breeze,
24In the great gales that came over to them across the roofs from the great seas.
25 There was only a quiet rain when they were dying;
26 They must have heard the sparrows flying,
27And the small creeping creatures in the earth where they were lying—
28 But I, all day, I heard an angel crying:
29 ‘Hurt not the trees.’
The Full Text of “The Trees are Down”
—and he cried with a loud voice:
Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees—
(Revelation)
1They are cutting down the great plane-trees at the end of the gardens.
2For days there has been the grate of the saw, the swish of the branches as they fall,
3The crash of the trunks, the rustle of trodden leaves,
4With the ‘Whoops’ and the ‘Whoas,’ the loud common talk, the loud common laughs of the men, above it all.
5I remember one evening of a long past Spring
6Turning in at a gate, getting out of a cart, and finding a large dead rat in the mud of the drive.
7I remember thinking: alive or dead, a rat was a god-forsaken thing,
8But at least, in May, that even a rat should be alive.
9The week’s work here is as good as done. There is just one bough
10 On the roped bole, in the fine grey rain,
11 Green and high
12 And lonely against the sky.
13 (Down now!—)
14 And but for that,
15 If an old dead rat
16Did once, for a moment, unmake the Spring, I might never have thought of him again.
17It is not for a moment the Spring is unmade to-day;
18These were great trees, it was in them from root to stem:
19When the men with the ‘Whoops’ and the ‘Whoas’ have carted the whole of the whispering loveliness away
20Half the Spring, for me, will have gone with them.
21It is going now, and my heart has been struck with the hearts of the planes;
22Half my life it has beat with these, in the sun, in the rains,
23 In the March wind, the May breeze,
24In the great gales that came over to them across the roofs from the great seas.
25 There was only a quiet rain when they were dying;
26 They must have heard the sparrows flying,
27And the small creeping creatures in the earth where they were lying—
28 But I, all day, I heard an angel crying:
29 ‘Hurt not the trees.’
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“The Trees are Down” Summary
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“The Trees are Down” Themes
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The Relationship Between Nature and Humankind
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The Ubiquity of Death
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Trees are Down”
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Lines 1-4
They are cutting down the great plane-trees at the end of the gardens.
For days there has been the grate of the saw, the swish of the branches as they fall,
The crash of the trunks, the rustle of trodden leaves,
With the ‘Whoops’ and the ‘Whoas,’ the loud common talk, the loud common laughs of the men, above it all. -
Lines 5-8
I remember one evening of a long past Spring
Turning in at a gate, getting out of a cart, and finding a large dead rat in the mud of the drive.
I remember thinking: alive or dead, a rat was a god-forsaken thing,
But at least, in May, that even a rat should be alive. -
Lines 9-12
The week’s work here is as good as done. There is just one bough
On the roped bole, in the fine grey rain,
Green and high
And lonely against the sky. -
Lines 13-16
(Down now!—)
And but for that,
If an old dead rat
Did once, for a moment, unmake the Spring, I might never have thought of him again. -
Lines 17-20
It is not for a moment the Spring is unmade to-day;
These were great trees, it was in them from root to stem:
When the men with the ‘Whoops’ and the ‘Whoas’ have carted the whole of the whispering loveliness away
Half the Spring, for me, will have gone with them. -
Lines 21-24
It is going now, and my heart has been struck with the hearts of the planes;
Half my life it has beat with these, in the sun, in the rains,
In the March wind, the May breeze,
In the great gales that came over to them across the roofs from the great seas. -
Lines 25-29
There was only a quiet rain when they were dying;
They must have heard the sparrows flying,
And the small creeping creatures in the earth where they were lying—
But I, all day, I heard an angel crying:
‘Hurt not the trees.’
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“The Trees are Down” Symbols
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Spring
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The Rat
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Weather
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Hearts
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The Angel
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“The Trees are Down” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Anaphora
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Assonance
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Asyndeton
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Caesura
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Consonance
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Onomatopoeia
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Parallelism
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Personification
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“The Trees are Down” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Revelation
- Plane trees
- Grate
- Trodden
- Common
- Drive
- God-forsaken
- Bough
- Bole
- Unmake
- Gales
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Trees are Down”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“The Trees are Down” Speaker
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“The Trees are Down” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “The Trees are Down”
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More “The Trees are Down” Resources
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External Resources
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"Not For That City" in the Guardian — As short essay in the Guardian about one of Mew's sonnets.
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Poetry and the Environment — A short history of environmental poetry with links to poems, articles, videos, and other online resources, via Poetry Foundation.
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A Profile of Mew — An overview of Mew's life and works from the Poetry Foundation.
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Industrial Revolution — A succinct history of the First and Second Industrial Revolutions, which helps contextualize Mew's depiction of nature.
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The New Woman in the Victorian Fin de Siècle — An exploration of the emergence of the New Woman, including the figure's presence in literature, with images of primary source material from The British Library.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Charlotte Mew
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