Pamplin Grove Painting

The redwood is the glory of the Coast Range. It extends along the western slope, in a nearly continuous belt about ten miles wide, from beyond the Oregon boundary to the south of Santa Cruz, a distance of nearly four hundred miles, and in massive, sustained grandeur and closeness of growth surpasses all the other timber woods of the world. Trees from ten to fifteen feet in diameter and three hundred feet high are not uncommon, and a few attain a height of three hundred and fifty feet, or even four hundred, with a diameter at the base of fifteen to twenty feet or more, while the ground beneath them is a garden of fresh, exuberant ferns, lilies, gaultheria, and rhododendron. Farewell to such a world too long I press The crowded pavement with unwilling feet. Pity makes pride, and hate breeds hatefulness, And both are poisons. In the forest, sweet The shade, the peace immensity, that seems To drown the human life of doubts and dreams. Far off the massive portals of the wood, Buttressed with shadow, misty-blue, serene, Waited my coming.