28 



Sierra Club Bulletin 



poet, write about that !" he commanded, and so once more — a 

 few days later — I tried to catch the beauty of the moment : 



The mountain hemlock droops her lacy branches 

 Oh, so tenderly 



In the summer sun ! 

 Yet she has power to baffle avalanches — 

 She, rising slenderly 

 Where the rivers run. 



So pliant yet so powerful ! Oh, see her 

 Spread alluringly 



Her thin sea-green dress ! 

 Now from white winter's thrall the sun would free her 

 To bloom unenduringly 

 In his glad caress. 



I wonder sometimes if there was ever such another lover of 

 nature as John Muir. Never at least for me! He really loved 

 every littlest thing that grows ; studied the mole, the beetle, the 

 lily, with complete and perfect sympathy. And for his glorious 

 commanding love nothing was too sublime — not the sequoia, 

 the cataract, the blizzard in the mountains. 



