I once glanced up at a tree and found it full of angels
singing praises to God.

—Blake

If I’m to take this visionary quote
As something of a challenge (not a bad

Way of taking everything he wrote)
It isn’t one I’d be exactly glad
To tackle. Angels thronged those wild eyes!
The realist in me would settle for
The gleam (to name a consolation prize)
Which Wordsworth was at pains to say he saw

In nature (as a kid at least), but this,
If it ever lent its lucence to my view,
Has been long since retired to the shelf.
Which doesn’t mean a tree, though angelless,
Won’t move me now and then to loose a few
Notes of praise from the old throat myself.