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.
THE SEQUOIA GIGANTIA
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.