Heart of New England

They sailed, they knew not whither, They came, nor questioned why, But that the men-folk whom they loved Without their care would die.

Babes newly born they carried, And bairns with wavering feet; But never a cow was there for milk, And never a stove for heat.

Through icy waves they landed, They washed in frozen streams; They shivered through the nights of dread With horror in their dreams.

Through toil and want and danger High-hearted they could wait; They lived and died for the commonweal, And mothered a nursling State.

They had no voice in meeting, No vote in pact or law; But of their flesh and blood is built Our strength for peace and war.

Thank God for the brave women Of a hard three-hundred years! Have they not earned a nation’s trust Through sacrifice and tears?

My clan endured their kindred; But foreigners they loathed, And wandering folk, and minstrels, And gypsies motley-clothed.

Then why do patches please me, Fantastic, wild array? Why have I vagrant fancies For lads from far away?

My kin were godly Churchmen— Or paced in elders’ weeds; But all were grave and pious And hated heathen creeds.

Then why are Thor and Wotan To me dread forces still? Why does my heart go questing For Pan beyond the hill?

My people clutched at freedom, (Though others’ wills they chained) But made the Law and kept it, And Beauty they restrained.

Then why am I a rebel To laws of rule and square? Why would I dream and dally, Or, reckless, do and dare?

O righteous, solemn Grandsires, O Dames, correct and mild, Who bred me of your virtues, Whence comes this changeling child?

The thirteenth generation— Unlucky number this!— My grandam loved a pirate, And all my faults are his.

A gallant, ruffled rover, With beauty-loving eye, He swept Colonial waters Of coarser, bloodier fry.

He waved his hat to Danger, At Law he shook his fist. Ah, merrily he plundered, He sang and fought and kissed!

Though none have found his treasure, And none his part would take, I bless that thirteenth lady Who chose him for my sake.

Savages

The Heathen hailed us from the beach, Prayed the new gods to bless and teach. They worshiped us and gave us food, Sweet water and maize, nuts from the wood; Showed us safe harbor. Liquor and beads Got us broad acres for our needs; We set shrewd boundaries to the farms. Too generously we loaned them arms; Froward they grew and scorned our laws, They bared white fangs, unsheathed fierce claws. Haunts in the wilderness they made To spy upon our barricade, Our meeting-house and granaries, Coveting them with cruel eyes. One stole a heifer from our yard; We hanged the whelp; they scalped our guard; We shot their chief and eight tall braves. The devils swarmed from dens and caves, And burned the roofs above our heads; Murdered the children in their beds! With righteous wrath we armed for war, Scouring the forest near and far, River and lake with uncouth name, All the fair region once their claim, Killing the Redskin fiends at sight. At last we rid us of the blight; We made the savage race to cease, And earned a Sabbath Day of peace. We walled the tilth and reared this town.

O great Jehovah looking down, Reward our pious people still, Who set Thy temple on the hill.

Pirate Treasure

A lady loved a swaggering rover, The seven salt seas he voyaged over, Bragged of a hoard none could discover, Hey! Jolly Roger, O.

She bloomed in a mansion dull and stately, And as to Meeting she walked sedately, From the tail of her eye she liked him greatly, Hey! Jolly Roger, O.

Rings in his ears and a red sash wore he, He sang her a song and told her a story; “I’ll make ye Queen of the Ocean!” swore he, Hey! Jolly Roger, O.

She crept from bed by her sleeping sister; By the old gray mill he met and kissed her. Blue day dawned before they missed her, Hey! Jolly Roger, O.

And while they prayed her out of Meeting, Her wild little heart with bliss was beating, As seaward went the lugger fleeting, Hey! Jolly Roger, O.

Choose in haste and repent at leisure; A buccaneer life is not all pleasure. He set her ashore with a little treasure, Hey! Jolly Roger, O.

Off he went where waves were dashing, Knives were gleaming, cutlasses clashing; And a ship on jagged rocks went crashing. Hey! Jolly Roger, O.

Over his bones the tides are sweeping; The only trace of the pirate sleeping Is what he left in the lady’s keeping, Hey! Jolly Roger, O.

Two hundred years is his name unspoken, The secret of his hoard unbroken. But a black-browed race wears the rover’s token, Hey! Jolly Roger, O.

Sea-blue eyes that gleam and glisten, Lips that sing—and you like to listen— A swaggering song; it might be this one, “Hey! Jolly Roger, O!”

“Not love a wall!” I sit above the meadow in the glowing fall, Tracing the gray redoubt from square to square That bounds the acres harvest-ripe and fair, And wonder if it’s true? Nay! Ask the sumac and the teeming vine That lean upon the boulders; The crimsoning ivy and the wild woodbine, Whose eager fingers clutch the stony shoulders; The golden-rod, the aster, and the rue. Ask the red squirrel with the chubby cheek Skipping from stone to stone By a quick route, his hidden hoard to seek, Making the little viaduct his own. Look where the woodchuck lifts a cautious head Between the rocks, close by the cabbage bed; The honey-bees have built a secret hive In a forgotten chink; And there a gray cocoon is tucked away, Shrouding a miracle of mauve and pink To wait its Easter Day. The wall with pageantry is all alive.

And I who gaze On the dark border here, Drawn like a ribbon round the pasture-ways, Embroidered with the glory of the year— What is the wall to me? Has it no beauty more than eyes can see? Lo, I remember how in days of old A grandsire toiled with weariness and pain To dig the clumsy boulders from the mould; Piled them in ordered rows again, Fitting them firm and fast, A monument to last Long after his own harried day was past. He cleared the rocky soil for corn and grain By which his children throve To carry on the race. We live by his life-giving. I see each stone, rough like his granite face— Uncompromising, stern, no slave to love, Dowered with little grace, Grim with the hard, unjoyful task of living; But strong to stand the wrath of storm and time, And bolts that heaven lets fall. Built of a patriot’s prime— How well I love the wall!

Hampton Town

The Hampton marshes to the sea Stretch out a colored tapestry; A woven, iridescent gleam, Patterned with many a sea-filled stream, Where dips the heron silently.

Above the Hampton meadows soar Wisps of a quaint, forgotten lore, Wild legends of another day, Sea-born and salty, like the spray Flung from the great tusks of the Boar.

And as I wander down the street Of Hampton Town with loitering feet, A fragrance breathes from gardens old, Drawn from the centuries of mould, Thyme, bleeding-heart, and bitter-sweet.

The ghosts of lovely ladies rise, With terror in their haunted eyes; Witches and redskins, soldiers grim; Pirate and Puritan—oath and hymn— All in a web whose threads I share.

The Hampton pines these legends know, And gossip them in whispers low. They spin an eerie charm that twines About the lovely Place of Pines, To blood that throbs from long ago.

The Old Garden

I chanced upon the little bowered retreat For the first time, and never shall forget The spell of tangled mystery! The wet Bejeweled leaves like fingers curled to meet My childish hand; the unimagined sweet Of briar, heliotrope, and mignonette; The tang of box, and quainter blossoms set By mazy paths for liliputian feet.

High walls of hollyhock and morning-glory Concealed the ancient house with gables wide; Shut out the world of swift and merry hours. In the long silence of a fairy-story My heart stood still. Then, at a turn I spied My Mother, smiling at the other flowers.

Grandmother’s House

Grandmother’s house is far away. You take the train and you ride all day, Till you come to a meadow beside the sea, As green and still as a place can be.