Fire he sang, that trees fear, and I, a tree, rejoiced in its flames. New buds broke forth from me though it was full summer. As though his lyre (now I knew its name) were both frost and fire, its chords flamed up to the crown of me. I was seed again. I was fern in the swamp. I was coal.

He told of journeys, of where sun and moon go while we stand in dark, of an earth-journey he dreamed he would take some day deeper than roots ... He told of th…

And I in terror but not in doubt of what I must do in anguish, in haste, wrenched from the earth root after root, the soil heaving and cracking, the moss teari…

Then as he sang it was no longer sounds only that made the music: he spoke, and as no tree listens I listened, and language came into my roots out of the earth…

From humble Port to imperial Tokay.

'What is the color when black is burned?' - 'I Am a Child'

I was a modest, good-humoured boy. It is Oxford that has made me insufferable.