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(Excerpt)
FAIR is thy face, Nantasket, | |
| And fair thy curving shores,— | |
| The peering spires of villages, | |
| The boatman’s dipping oars, | |
| The lonely ledge of Minot, | 5 |
| Where the watchman tends his light, | |
| And sets his perilous beacon, | |
| A star in the stormiest night. | |
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| Over thy vast sea highway | |
| The great ships slide from sight, | 10 |
| And flocks of wingéd phantoms | |
| Flit by, like birds in flight. | |
| Over the toppling sea-wall | |
| The home-bound dories float, | |
| And I watch the patient fisherman | 15 |
| Bend in his anchored boat. | |
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| I am alone with Nature; | |
| With the glad September day. | |
| The leaning hills above me | |
| With golden-rod are gay, | 20 |
| Across the fields of ether | |
| Flit butterflies at play, | |
| And cones of garnet sumach | |
| Glow down the country way. | |
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| The autumn dandelion | 25 |
| Along the roadside burns; | |
| Down from the lichened bowlders | |
| Quiver the pluméd ferns; | |
| The cream-white silk of the milkweed | |
| Floats from its sea-green pod; | 30 |
| Out from the mossy rock-seams | |
| Flashes the golden-rod. | |
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| The woodbine’s scarlet banners | |
| Flaunt from their towers of stone; | |
| The wan, wild morning-glory | 35 |
| Dies by the road alone; | |
| By the hill-path to the seaside | |
| Wave myriad azure bells; | |
| And over the grassy ramparts lean | |
| The milky immortelles. | 40 |
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| Hosts of gold-hearted daisies | |
| Nod by the wayside bars; | |
| The tangled thicket of green is set | |
| With the aster’s purple stars; | |
| Beside the brook the gentian | 45 |
| Closes its fringéd eyes, | |
| And waits the later glory | |
| Of October’s yellow skies. | |
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| Within the sea-washed meadow | |
| The wild grape climbs the wall, | 50 |
| And from the o’er-ripe chestnuts | |
| The brown burs softly fall. | |
| I see the tall reeds shiver | |
| Beside the salt sea marge; | |
| I see the sea-bird glimmer, | 55 |
| Far out on airy barge. | |
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| I hear in the groves of Hingham | |
| The friendly caw of the crow, | |
| Till I sit again in Wachusett’s woods, | |
| In August’s sumptuous glow. | 60 |
| The tiny boom of the beetle | |
| Strikes the shining rocks below; | |
| The gauzy oar of the dragon-fly | |
| Is beating to and fro. | |
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| As the lovely ghost of the thistle | 65 |
| Goes sailing softly by; | |
| Glad in its second summer | |
| Hums the awakened fly; | |
| The cumulate cry of the cricket | |
| Pierces the amber noon; | 70 |
| In from the vast sea-spaces comes | |
| The clear call of the loon; | |
| Over and through it all I hear | |
| Ocean’s pervasive rune. | |
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| Against the warm sea-beaches | 75 |
| Bush the wavelets’ eager lips; | |
| Away o’er the sapphire reaches | |
| Move on the stately ships. | |
| Peace floats on all their pennons, | |
| Sailing silently the main, | 80 |
| As if never human anguish, | |
| As if never human pain, | |
| Sought the healing draught of Lethe, | |
| Beyond the gleaming plain. | |
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| Fair is the earth behind me, | 85 |
| Vast is the sea before, | |
| Away through the misty dimness | |
| Glimmers a further shore. | |
| It is no realm enchanted, | |
| It cannot be more fair | 90 |
| Than this nook of Nature’s Kingdom, | |
| With its spell of space and air. * * * * * | |
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