The Big Trees of California (1907), by Galen Clark

“I have been to the woods, I have trod the green dell,
        And the spirit of beauty was there;
I saw her white form in the snowdrop’s white bell,
        I heard her soft voice in the air.

She danced in the aspen, she sighed in the gale,
She wept in the shower, she blushed in the vale;

Her mantle was thrown o’er the misty brake;
Her splendor shown in the sparkling lake.

I felt her breath in the breezes of even,
Her robe floated over the blue vault of heaven.

Wherever I roved over vale, wood or hill,
The spirit of beauty would follow me still.

Not a wildbriar rose Its fragrance breathed,
Not an elm its clustering foliage wreathed,

Not a violet opened its eyes of blue,
Not a plant or flower in the valley grew,

Not an ivy caressing the rock in the wall,
But the spirit of beauty was over them all.”

And I’ve been to the groves of Sequoia Big Trees,
        Where beauty and grandeur combine,

Grand Temples of Nature for worship and ease,
        Enchanting, inspiring, sublime!