THE SONG OF THE PINE
Hear now the song of the pineThat is sung when strong winds sweepHot-flung from the mighty South,Or the North Wind bellows deep:Hear thou the song of the pineWhen the sea-wet West beats in,Or the East from his tether breaksWith clamorous, human din.The long boughs quiver and shake,Uproused from their primal ease,And bend as an organ reedWhen a strong hand strikes the keys;And a mighty hymn rolls forthTo the far hills farthest line,Earth’s challenge and trumpet call—Hear now the song of the pine.
The strong gray hills are my throne, the rock-ribbed thews of the earth;There have I marshalled my brethren, and laughed at wind and sun;I tent with the crag and the eagle; the Cloud Gods saw my birth;I have drunk the strength of ages—a thousand years as one.I have warred with rift and crevice, with avalanche and shale,Grappling my barren ridge with the grip of a mail-clad fist;Storms roll their anger around me, torn through with lightnings pale,Or robe me in lonely ermine, or garb me with sodden mist.The stars are my near companions; ever to them I lift,And grow to their nightly splendor with soul as far and free;Counting the swinging seasons by the planet’s veer and drift,Till again the wild Spring-Joy wells up from the earth to me:—The old, fierce joy of living, all primitive, undenied;As breathed from the Maker’s lips on clay still warm with its touch;When no soul skulked or whimpered, or in impotent weakness cried,And life was a strong man’s gift to be held in an iron clutch.Held—or flung down as the pine-top shakes down a ripened cone;Then stretches green fingers skyward with larger faith and hope;Glad without thought or question, undoubtful of earth or sun,From the bent blue overhead to the mold where the dark roots grope.But level sinketh to level as height calls up to height;Courage is born of danger; the deed of the naked need;Came Ease to sit on the hearth, dear-bought with the ancient might,And drunk with her smile men slept and lapsed to a weaker breed,O men that dream in the lowland, men that drowse in the plain,Wake ye, and turn to the forest, turn to the far, high hills;Ye shall win from their unspent greatness the olden strength again;Ye shall hear in that lofty silence the battle shout that thrills.Ye shall find in those utmost reaches power undefiled;Wisdom untaught of sages, and patience and truth divine;Life tameless still; untainted; primal and potent and wild—Rouse ye, nor linger belittled,—shamed by the wind-swung pine.