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| WHAT point of Time, unchronicled, and dim | |
| As yon gray mist that canopies your heads, | |
| Took from the greedy wave and gave the sun | |
| Your dwelling-place, ye gaunt and hoary Pines? | |
| When, from the barren bosoms of the hills, | 5 |
| With scanty nurture, did ye slowly climb, | |
| Of these remote and latest-fashioned shores | |
| The first-born forest? Titans gnarled and rough, | |
| Such as from out subsiding Chaos grew | |
| To clothe the cold loins of the savage earth, | 10 |
| What fresh commixture of the elements, | |
| What earliest thrill of life, the stubborn soil | |
| Slow-mastering, engendered ye to give | |
| The hills a mantle and the wind a voice? | |
| Along the shore ye lift your rugged arms, | 15 |
| Blackened with many fires, and with hoarse chant,— | |
| Unlike the fibrous lute your co-mates touch | |
| In elder regions,—fill the awful stops | |
| Between the crashing cataracts of the surf. | |
| Have ye no tongue, in all your sea of sound, | 20 |
| To syllable the secret,—no still voice | |
| To give your airy myths a shadowy form, | |
| And make us of lost centuries of lore | |
The rich inheritors?
The sea-winds pluck | |
| Your mossy beards, and gathering as they sweep, | 25 |
| Vex your high heads, and with your sinewy arms | |
| Grapple and toil in vain. A deeper roar, | |
| Sullen and cold, and rousing into spells | |
| Of stormy volume, is your sole reply. | |
| Anchored in firm-set rock, ye ride the blast, | 30 |
| And from the promontory’s utmost verge | |
| Make signal o’er the waters. So ye stood, | |
| When, like a star, behind the lonely sea, | |
| Far shone the white speck of Grijalva’s sail; | |
| And when, through driving fog, the breaker’s sound | 35 |
| Frighted Otondo’s men, your spicy breath | |
| Played as in welcome round their rusty helms, | |
| And backward from its staff shook out the folds | |
Of Spain’s emblazoned banner.
Ancient Pines, | |
| Ye bear no record of the years of man. | 40 |
| Spring is your sole historian,—Spring, that paints | |
| These savage shores with hues of Paradise; | |
| That decks your branches with a fresher green, | |
| And through your lonely, far cañadas pours | |
| Her floods of bloom, rivers of opal dye | 45 |
| That wander down to lakes and widening seas | |
| Of blossom and of fragrance,—laughing Spring, | |
| That with her wanton blood refills your veins, | |
| And weds ye to your juicy youth again | |
| With a new ring, the while your rifted bark | 50 |
| Drops odorous tears. Your knotty fibres yield | |
| To the light touch of her unfailing pen, | |
| As freely as the lupin’s violet cup. | |
| Ye keep, close-locked, the memories of her stay, | |
| As in their shells the avelonès keep | 55 |
| Morn’s rosy flush and moonlight’s pearly glow. | |
| The wild northwest, that from Alaska sweeps, | |
| To drown Point Lobos with the icy scud | |
| And white sea-foam, may rend your boughs and leave | |
| Their blasted antlers tossing in the gale; | 60 |
| Your steadfast hearts are mailed against the shock, | |
| And on their annual tablets naught inscribe | |
| Of such rude visitation. Ye are still | |
| The simple children of a guiltless soil, | |
| And in your natures show the sturdy grain | 65 |
| That passion cannot jar, nor force relax, | |
| Nor aught but sweet and kindly airs compel | |
| To gentler mood. No disappointed heart | |
| Has sighed its bitterness beneath your shade; | |
| No angry spirit ever came to make | 70 |
| Your silence its confessional; no voice, | |
| Grown harsh in Crime’s great market-place, the world, | |
| Tainted with blasphemy your evening hush | |
| And aromatic air. The deer alone,— | |
| The ambushed hunter that brings down the deer,— | 75 |
| The fisher wandering on the misty shore | |
| To watch sea-lions wallow in the flood,— | |
| The shout, the sound of hoofs that chase and fly, | |
| When swift vaqueros, dashing through the herds, | |
| Ride down the angry bull;—perchance, the song | 80 |
| Some Indian heired of long-forgotten sires,— | |
Disturb your solemn chorus.
Stately Pines, | |
| But few more years around the promontory | |
| Your chant will meet the thunders of the sea. | |
| No more, a barrier to the encroaching sand, | 85 |
| Against the surf ye ’ll stretch defiant arm, | |
| Though with its onset and besieging shock | |
| Your firm knees tremble. Nevermore the wind | |
| Shall pipe shrill music through your mossy beards, | |
| Nor sunset’s yellow blaze athwart your heads | 90 |
| Crown all the hills with gold. Your race is past: | |
| The mystic cycle, whose unnoted birth | |
| Coeval was with yours, has run its sands, | |
| And other footsteps from these changing shores | |
| Frighten its haunting Spirit. Men will come | 95 |
| To vex your quiet with the din of toil; | |
| The smoky volumes of the forge will stain | |
| This pure, sweet air; loud keels will ride the sea, | |
| Dashing its glittering sapphire into foam; | |
| Through all her green cañadas Spring will seek | 100 |
| Her lavish blooms in vain, and clasping ye, | |
| O mournful Pines, within her glowing arms, | |
| Will weep soft rains to find ye fallen low. | |
| Fall, therefore, yielding to the fiat! Fall, | |
| Ere the maturing soil, whose first dull life | 105 |
| Fed your belated germs, be rent and seamed! | |
| Fall, like the chiefs ye sheltered, stern, unbent, | |
| Your gray beards hiding memorable scars! | |
| The winds will mourn ye, and the barren hills | |
| Whose breast ye clothed; and when the pauses come | 110 |
| Between the crashing cataracts of the surf, | |
| A funeral silence, terrible, profound, | |
| Will make sad answer to the listening sea. | |
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