THE YELLOW PINE
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.