O comrade tree, perhaps alive as I—
One process lacking of this mortal clay—
Give me your constant outlook to the sky,
The courtesy and cheer that fill your day.
Your noble gift of perfect service teach;
Your wisdom in the wild storm softly bent
Aware 'twill end; your patience that can reach
Across the years from clod to firmament.
Catherine Markham (Mrs. Edwin Markham)
A LADY OF THE SNOWS
The mountain hemlock droops her lacy branches
Oh, so tenderly
In the summer sun!
Yet she has power to baffle avalanches—
She, rising slenderly
Where the rivers run.
So pliant yet so powerful! Oh, see her
Spread alluringly
Her thin sea-green dress!
Now from white winter's thrall the sun would free her
To bloom unenduringly
In his glad caress.
Harriet Monroe
THE TREE
Spread, delicate roots of my tree,
Feeling, clasping, thrusting, growing;
Sensitive pilgrim root tips roaming everywhere.
Into resistant earth your filaments forcing,
Down in the dark, unknown, desirous:
The strange ceaseless life of you, eating and drinking of earth,
The corrosive secretions of you, breaking the stuff of the world to your will.