The Summit Redwood Analysis

Cawdor & other poems1928Only stand high a long enough time your lightningwill come; that is what blunts the peaks ofredwoods;

But this old tower of life on the hilltop has takenit more than twice a century, this knows inevery

Cell the salty and the burning taste, the shudderand the voice.The fire from heaven; it hasfelt the earth's too

Roaring up hill in autumn, thorned oak-leaves tossingtheir bright ruin to the bitter laurel-leaves,and all

Its under-forest has died and died, and lives to beburnt; the redwood has lived. Though the fireentered,

It cored the trunk while the sapwood increased. Thetrunk is a tower, the bole of the trunk is ablack cavern,

The mast of the trunk with its green boughs themountain stars are strained through

Is like the helmet-spike on the highest head of anarmy; black on lit blue or hidden in cloud

It is like the hill's finger in heaven. And when thecloud hides it, though in barren summer, theboughs

Make their own rain.Old Escobar had a cunning trickwhen he stole beef. He and his grandsons

Would drive the cow up here to a starlight death andhoist the carcass into the tree's hollow,

Then let them search his cabin he could smile forpleasure, to think of his meat hanging secure

Exalted over the earth and the ocean, a theft like astar, secret against the supreme sky.

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