A PAGEANT OF THE TREES

We are the hosts innumerable who ride Upon the hills—who stride The plains and surge upon the mountainside. We are the onward-sweeping tide Of ceaseless growth, the countless entities Of all the rolling, emerald seas Of timber-land—we are the Trees! The dam who suckles us is Earth, She gives us birth And when Our night is come, she claims her own again. We live to grow and to this end Recurring seasons lend Their favor; Winter comes, our labors cease, It is a time of cold, white peace; When Spring walks jubilantly through the land We know the hour of increase is at hand; Then stirs our forest-heart and sap runs free— The sap which is the life-blood of a tree. Our skin is bark, and fiber is our flesh And through the pores of every fresh Green leaf, we breathe. Our good? Is to make wood; To hold in check the floods that devastate; To mediate Between the Heavens and the Earth, That there shall be no dearth Of water nor excess—yet still enough Stored in our forest floor of matted duff To save the land from barrenness, And when we tender less Than this, or stop From making wood, we’re dead! In time, we drop, And when we drop, we rot. Such is our lot; our lives are fraught With much vicissitude, not always free To shape our destiny— A tale where each slow-born event Is moulded by environment. And there is stuff Enough of drama if the rough, Rude story were all told—a stage Where age- Old patriarchs make way For jostling, upstart youth and gay, Bepainted courtezans and those who weep With trailing tears; and anchorites who keep Their solitary trysts; and those who sing; And gossips bent in whispering; Defiant wretches of the sod, Hurling invective at their God; Or those whose arms in priestly-wise Turn supplicating to the skies, Or stoop to bless With benediction and caress; And gnarled hags And misshaped monsters of the crags; And moon-white hosts Of beckoning ghosts. With wild, spendthrift magnificence The stage is set—immense And primal. Flash And flood and thunder-crash, Devouring flame and scattered dead And silences that hang like lead. Stuff Enough for drama if the rough Rude story were all told; A tale as old As dusk, as new as dawn— The play is always going on— The curtain’s never drawn.

I am the oldest and the biggest thing That lives—a link forever lengthening, That binds the vanished THEN fast to The fleeting NOW. I grew— Each ’circling ring bespoke a year, Recording there My prospering—or marked perchance Some hindering of circumstance. This towering shaft in armored front Of thickest bark, has borne the brunt Of frost and flame; it has endured Through countless plagues and is inured To all the ravagings Of crawling things. My grizzled head has glimpsed the wax And wane of comets and the tracks Of trailing meteors; and I Have watched across the sky Of time, Young nations rise and reach their prime And then grow dim again. I was a sturdy sapling when Gray Egypt reared the slave-hewn stones That hearsed the bones Of Rameses; and full two thousand folds and more Had sealed my red heart’s inmost core When He drew breath— The Christ of little Nazareth.

I am the oldest and the biggest thing That lives—a link forever lengthening, That binds the vanished THEN fast to The fleeting NOW.

I’ve kept my long-established place And I am solid—crown to base; My heart is sound, my bole is straight, My limbs hang with an even weight, I do not sag and there is no Near gully where the freshets flow To undermine my roots. God planned It so, and by his grace I’ll stand Against the centuries still. So will I fill My destiny— To be A messenger—to carry on, to give Tomorrow’s children who shall live When this fair present’s passed away, The legend of my yesterday.

I am the grisly claws Of this crestfallen spruce that was. Almighty tall he grew and straight— I bore his Lordship’s weight For some odd centuries, and great It was to see a tree so fine In bulk and splendid in design. His portly tons increased with age While I sprawled in the cellarage, And when winds tossed his noble head I knew how shallow was my bed, For in my youth I led A rambling life, quite free from toil; I sucked the soggy surface-soil, I did not deem it worth The while to pierce the deeper earth To make my base a solid thing Against the days of reckoning. My tangled talons forked far out, They squirmed and twisted round about, They radiated from my crown— They went along but never down. Once now and then some minstrel breezes strolled Our way—they bowled Old-timers down. The ground Was strewn with windfalls all around; A rendezvous For every breeze that blew For miles—a test I’ll warrant for the best Of trees and doom for all the rest. Great strapping fellows—hale and well To look upon, but how they fell! A crack! A bump! A splintered, jagged stump! And how the pride of some did smart To have a rotted heart Torn open thus—relentlessly exposed! Meanwhile his Lordship posed— The peer without a flaw! And he was held in very proper awe— He saw his rivals snapped like straws, And still he stood—while I dug in my claws. I knew that it would come—some gust would blow To spill him low. His great bole swayed And trembled like a barley-blade, His lifelong balance-line he tottered past— The die was cast, For there was no rebound. The ground Ripped as he rocked And with the crash my roots unlocked. In such a wise—upturned by fate, I was exalted from my low estate. I am a monstrous thing to see, A flat, misshapen prodigy Of towsie tentacles and mud and stones And twisted bones— A ghastly secret raised to smear This forest nobleman’s career.

By crowding upward toward the light Day and night, We lift (the lifting never stops) Our panoply of towering tops. We are all height and gloom; We have no room, No place For our own brothers in the race For light; if they can not keep pace With us, nor reach as high, They die! Our lancet-stems are clean like stalks of grain, Thus we maintain Our creed, which is to rise In unspoiled beauty toward the skies— We make no compromise! Across the fire-swept areas our seeds Are blown, to drop among the weeds. A little while they lie And germinate, and by and by WE spring—a sapling here—and there— And everywhere, Elbowing in Through chinkapin And rhododendrons and the crush Of maple brush; Before we know, We’ve grown into a forest, while below We glimpse the copse And see the tops Of things That have become our underlings. There are no thicker stands Than ours, in all the Northwest lands— By grace of rivalry we grow so straight, And thrive and dominate.

Our lancet-stems are clean like stalks of grain, Thus we maintain Our creed, which is to rise In unspoiled beauty toward the skies.

Among the evergreens I grow All summer long—they do not know— I look so much as if I were An honest upright kind of fir. I even think they envy me, My fronds show such a filigree Of needlework, all interlaced— They do not know I’m double-faced. I am as straight as any lance And so I win their confidence; I know their inmost secret things, I hear their softest murmurings, I listen and maintain my mien— They think I am an evergreen! But when the summer goes, October knows! October knows! For then my needles turn to gold, I stand a traitor to the fold, I am the turncoat of the pack— The yellow-flaming tamarack! I hoist my shining staff, I give them all the laugh, Until my golden needles drop And sober up. I’ve had my fling— Next spring When I am seen Again, I’ll be an evergreen!

The rocks and sands of Monterey— They Nourished me Beside the sea. My age? It matters not— It was enough to batter me a bit; I’ve got My own credentials of what’s what. The way my flattened trunk is worn Shows well enough I was not born Into this planet yesterday; whoever will Can count my rings the day I fall—until That time, the secret I have kept Shall sleep as it has slept. Had fate dealt otherwise, I might have been Bestowed in safety with my kin To landward there, a half-mile in— Most orthodox and prim In trunk and limb. For such an orthodoxy, bah, who’d give Two grains of sand—they do not live! They’ve nothing to combat. I get The first-hand give-and-take; the wet, Flung spray, the savage shoulder-drive Of unspent blasts—on these I thrive. And then I watch—for me The sweep of sea, Unbroken, beautiful. I get the first Of everything. I see the burst Of evening clouds unrolled Upon a palpitating field of gold. Shot through with fiery javelins that dart Up from the sun’s red heart. So passes out my day. My night Is moon and mist and light Of stars—I keep The sweep Of sky and sea— Which somehow seems all made for me.

When my skin is newly green, When it’s turned a copper sheen, When it’s flushed to ruddiness like rich, old wine, Seek me in the wilderness, Seek me in my gleaming dress, Seek me in the shadows of the covering pine. Lace of leafy malachite Letting in the splashing light, Dappling all my full, round limbs with leopard gold; Lovely as a mottled snake, Grace in every curve I make, Amorously beautiful my arms unfold. Never was a gypsy maid More audaciously arrayed, Never half so ravishing or so fair— Topaz clusters, look at them, Set in Autumn’s diadem, Dazzling in the darkness of my thick, green hair.

I do not like the cloistered wood And little good I find in forest gloom, I much prefer the elbow-room Of well-spaced groves, earth kempt and free Of undergrowth; to be Respectfully removed, with green And pleasant interludes between, And in the middle distance see My fellows grouped fraternally Against a haze of blue; beyond, a maze Of trunks receding till they all Seem drawn together in a wall Where every tree Is lost in dark uncertainty.

A strange Unearthly beauty I have known When like a hyacinth full-blown I’ve stood Upon a winter morning in the wood.

Or better still The isolated grandeur of a hill, Just as the day is done, To watch the sun Hit full my western side And splash my alligator’s hide Of burnished copper scales with golden light; To see me so, against the purple night Banked high upon some eastern range, Is well—but there is yet a strange Unearthly beauty I have known, When like a hyacinth full-blown, I’ve stood Upon a winter morning in the wood Transfigured in the snow, Until the wind would blow And then I’d find myself a tree again.

On every fire-swept blotch we stick, We are the thick Impenetrable brush— The nondescripts who rush To claim the open. We’re the mass— We have no cliques, we have no class; We crowd and push, Tree and bush; Who keeps our frenzied pace Is welcome to the race. The affable spiræa likes To bob her ivory spikes, Hobnobbing free With such a tolerable company. The dogwoods do not hold Aloof from mingling with our fold; The snowdrop crowd Seem very proud To dangle in the dancing light Their pretty balls of white; And if the willows do not care To share Our comradeship, they’ve kept their secret well. So with the snarling chaparral And manzanita with her thin, Red, scaling arms—and burry chinkapin. We do not ban That painted courtezan, Vine-maple, she whose fingers clutch Each place they touch. We do not fuss— Like other crowds, she’s part of us; As is the tremulous And quaking aspen; each little troop Of goldenrods; each whispering group Of girlish alders and the countless breeds Of weeds. After our kind, we live; Week after week we give Our dower Of fruit and flower In little or largess Accordingly as we possess. In Autumn we hold carnival And over all The hills, our many-patterned carpet lies Bright with a thousand dyes; Rich-tufted plush Of brush, Deep-grained and thick; this covering Each year we bring— A dress Of wildest loveliness To merge in beauty more and more The ancient forest floor.

We were not meant for forest life— Not we! we chose the strife Of high adventure—took our luck Here on the rocks and here we’ve stuck We are the pigmies of the spurs— The little warriors! Perched on these crags, we hurled Our challenge to the world. The wind heard our defy And blew till all the sky Grew purply-black and thundery. Uncommon wroth was he, When like a rumbling blunderbuss He tried to topple us, But wallowed flat—we were too short To fall! And it was merry sport Upon our jagged floor To see him wrestling there; a score Of holds he tried and thought each bout Would tire us out. Oh Lord, The way he stormed and roared! Then desperate he tried to tear Us limb from limb—to wear Us down upon his rack, A-bending back Our arms, so we would cry “enough!” We were too tough To crack! Then came the snow—so light At first, but soon its white Dead weight in silence crept Upon our shoulders and we slept The sleep that no spring wakes, But only summer breaks, When with her melting hand she takes Our blankets off and shakes The dripping fleece into the flow Of rushing torrents far below. Thus we are stooped by weight of snows And twisted by each wind that blows; Our arms are gouged and shot By sharp-edged sands the winds have caught And driven home; our trunks are gashed And riven where the lightning flashed, And little increase may we show, So brief a season do we grow. Though Time’s attrition has been spent In our grotesque disfigurement. Still we can lift our flattened heads In pride, for we are thoroughbreds. We have not flinched and we can show At what far heights a tree can grow. We are the pigmies of the spurs— The little warriors Who left the haunts of fir and pine To mark the topmost timber-line.

We are the stricken—those who died But did not fall. Once, side by side, We burned and bled— We are the countless standing dead. Not like the Capuchins, cowl-topped, Dried in their cerements, stiff-propped And postured in the charnel gloom Of some deep-caverned chapel-room, But in the full, white light of day We stand—gaunt, naked, gray— Close-locked in death, Yet ever with the breath Of life around us. We can see The quickened green of each young tree, Their bobbing heads Upcrowding at our feet; and beds Of paint-brush and the blue Of lupine. Years renew Their seasons—dust and rain and snow. For us dawns glow, And setting suns transfuse our cold And ashen palor into gold; Moons rise, and then We all are turned to ghosts again.

We are the stricken—those who died But did not fall. Once, side by side, We burned and bled— We are the countless standing dead.

We look upon some mighty fir, Remembering ourselves that were; It was a lightning flash that came, And flame Encircled us. All night The sky was crimson with our light. Day dawned upon the hills—the sun rose red, It saw the dying and the dead, The vast, uncounted dead—and over all, A smoky pall That wavered in the wind. We did not fall— We did not fall, like some—magnificent in strength Who measured out their length, Still smouldering, upon the ash-heaped mat Of earth—we were not burned enough for that. Years passed Our dried bark cracked—at last It flaked and fell. In high distress We were—gaunt in our nakedness. So have we stood— The gray ghost-brotherhood, We who have burned and bled But did not fall—the standing dead.