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The following poem was written by William Alexander Godward of Sonoma, California. Mr. Godward has so effectively told the story of old Mount Mazama that we are printing it in Nature Notes.

AN ODE TO MAZAMA

He stood upon the world’s most western rim,
A giant taller than his giant kind.
To north or south no titan equaled him
In youthful grandeur and sky-towering mind.
Below him gazed bright Shasta in the blue,
Who turned to him a wonder-beaming eye.
Mazama felt her presence smiling through
The deepening shadows of the evening sky;
But he had caught the gleam of a pale maid
Who beckoned him out of the early dawn,
With witchery so daring, yet afraid,
As once she beckoned charmed Endymion
To follow her into a world of dreams;
To walk with her beside supernal streams.

Night after night through all the circling years
Mazama reached and longed for that slim form,
In summer stillness and in winter storm,
Which lured and beckoned him with hopes and fears.
Within, Mazama glowed and burned with fire,
Outpouring all his ardent soul in vain,
To the green levels of the wondering plain
In rolling streams of scoriac desire
When spent, at last, with heaven-seeking quest,
Mazama bent his frame, now rent and scarred.

The skies consenting to his rash behest
Gave the bold titan more than love’s reward;
For Joys more dear, they give, and sweeter far
Than any titan’s dreams of maiden are.

Thus, as Mazama lay in ashes cold,
And While his giant grave was hollowed deep,
The brooding skies their precious drops would weep
Till it was filled with waters manifold.
In this clear lake whose deepest blue could hold
Undimmed her white resplendent maidenhood,
Revealing her in many a lovely mood,
Diana visits him in spirit bold.

She strains the colors of the sun’s broad glare
To make a harmony of blended light;
She shows him forms more exquisitely fair
Than naiads limned in the charmed groves of night.
Such loveliness enchants his every sense,
As only goddess gives in recompense.

For round the sapphire of this cratered sea
Forests had spread their deep mysterious shade.
Hemlocks and firs made many a wildering glade
That rang with songs of birds in harmony.
Clear waterfalls sang out in noisy glee
And raced through darkened caverns unafraid
To rest again in welcoming arcade
All floored in ferns and walled in wizardry.
And where the waters through the wooded rim
Of this sky-fostered lake find secret way,
There all the rarest blossoms in array
Put on their gayest hues to pleasure him.
Thus every charm of forest, flower, and stream
Were woven by Dian in Mazama’s dream.

There columbine rears towers white and red;
There monkshood spreads its canopies of blue;
Anemones and hellebore and rue
Still grieve for hapless lovers long since dead.
The gaudy fireweed tosses flaming head
To dance in careless glee the long day through
Beside the meek-eyed violets still true
To the bold titan in his flowery bed.
Here mimulus, Like Dian, in the shade
Reveals her purple loveliness unveiled;
The rosy orchid, queen of beauty hailed,
Stands gleaming, glowing like a gracious maid,
With humbler flowers delicately sweet
Bowing and blushing at her very feet.

Mazama sleeps in this enchanted spot.
What cares he how the endless cycles run,
Or for repeating orbits of the sun?
For time and fickle change disturb him not.
No longer rolls the lava seething hot;
No longer burns his heart for triumphs won,
Nor tells his weary soul when day is done
Tomorrow will with victory be fraught.
Beyond the heat of youthful hopes and fears
He sleeps and dreams the dream of cosmic peace,
Unmindful how hot torrents sought release
With vulcan rendings through volcanic years.
Long may his sleep be free from past alarms;
Awake him not from Dian’s deepening charms.

The trees inside the rim of Crater Lake and on the steep slopes of the surrounding peaks show a distinct bend near the base. The bend might be accounted for by some as due to soil creep. “Soil creep” is the gradual downward slipping of the soil on the steep hillsides. This is usually caused by alternate freezing and thawing of the soil aided by the water table in the early spring. Since the soil on the slopes is quite shallow and many of the tree roots are anchored in solid rock, it is very improbable that soil creep is responsible for the bend. Also in the case of soil creep the base would have moved down slope and the tops tilted upward. If a resulting bend occurred it would be in the opposite direction to that found in Nature.

It appears more probable that snow pressure on the trees for six months or more of the year forces the trees out of the line of normal growth and causes a distinct crook that is called “snow bend”. The tree is most affected while it is very small. Some times it is pressed flat on the ground beneath huge drifts of snow for several months. During the growing season the sun draws the tree back into an upright position but before it can completely straighten the snow falls and again presses the tree out of line. Every year the growing tree, aided by the sun, gains a bit in the battle, but even the larger trees show a distinct “snow bend” that is never outgrown.

Visitors to the park this summer are extremely interested in the planting activity on the Rim from the entrance of the Rim Road to the Lodge. The rim walk winds through this planted area among native shrubs and flowers.

As the soil on the Rim is pumice and not favorable to plants, rich soil has been transplanted from bogs and stream banks and spread over the pumice.

At the head of the Lake Trail is an excellent planting layout of mountain ash, black twinberry, red twinberry, pink spirea, and native grass which forms an intersection of the lake and rim walks.. In the shaded locations under the mountain hemlocks are planted western bleeding hearts, alpine phlox and mountain valerian, The false green hellebore, Coville’s aster, fireweed and Crater Lake currant are all prominent at this season on the Rim edge. The Crater Lake currant is being used as a creeping plant to beautify the new Sinnott Memorial Building. In between the rocks of the building are planted a matted beard tongue, the lace fern, seedum, softening the lines of the architecture. These plants have been obtained from the rock crevices on the side of Garfield Peak.

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