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.