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.
THE BRUSH
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.