Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FARM-CIRCLE, by FRANK ERNEST HILL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FARM-CIRCLE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Peter jersey walked this hill a hundred and hundred
Last Line: Maybe I'm love of his work as well -- maybe I'm peter jersey, too.
Subject(s): Farm Life; Agriculture; Farmers


Peter Jersey walked this hill a hundred and hundred years ago,
Tumbled its roof of pillared trees, turned the rubble and bade it grow
Oat and apple, and dug to life jeweled water in rock below.

Peter Jersey tamed this hill, -- wove its oaks into room and stall,
Cleaned the soil of its warm red stone, heaped in the mould of a winding wall;
There are the bones of the mill he raised, mossed by the spray of the waterfall.

Peter Jersey was rich with work, shaping daily by dream and hand --
Girth of beam in a brown-peaked loft, curl of hinge or of barrel band,
Golden fruit that was born and filled by the magic marriage of men and land.

Maker of barn and house and mill, maker of clover and apple trees,
Watching his sons in the wake of plows, his daughters minding their hens and
bees,
Spreading his ninety years in the sun to thaw the age in his hands and knees,

Peter Jersey could still exult, stubbornly victor above his pains,
Conscious of life abundant, lasting . . . . Only the husk of it now remains,
And I have taken the earth he conquered, -- I with my hurry of desks and trains.

Something crumbled within that kingdom, built to grow like a timeless tree;
Eyes went hunting in pale horizons worlds half builded and half to be,
Webs spun skyward from steam and fire -- earth in harness and men set free.

Children of Peter Jersey's children sent their boys to the steel and steam;
Hands went slack on the rein and scythe; minds went slack where the charging
stream
Smote the wheel in the ageing mill. There was dying of deed and dream.

Peter Jersey's dream burned low and died like a lamp at an end of oil;
Men go on by the dreams they know, and the dream had gone from the stubborn
soil.
Plows grew rusty. The wildness crept, taking the land from the years of toil.

Peter Jersey's dream is gone, and I have taken his ruined hill,
Young with birches beside its walls, and sumach masking its gutted mill, --
I that am hurry of desks and trains, and steam and iron that wrought him ill.

Ghosts, they say, can be proud and angry. Ghosts are here where a gray roof
drops,
Where peach trees bloom in the brush with dogwood, rods beyond where the orchard
stops --
Ghosts with hate for the purr of engines, surge of sidewalks, and rush of shops.

Still for me they are kind. A peace is here on the house and the ruined hill;
Dawns make rainbows across the dew; noons on the meadow are droning still;
Stars dance deep in the stream. The night ripples afar with the whip-poor-will.

Life makes circles with men, I think. Wise ghosts watch how the years re-mould,
See men breaking the gods they carved, see men scatter their gathered gold.
Laughter flutters the hillside trees. . . . Ghosts, -- and the secret they
think they hold.

Laugh, old phantoms, whisper and laugh. Can you guess, I wonder, farther than
I?
Standing on Peter Jersey's hill, under the fire and the blue of his sky,
Slowly brooding on why I came from a world that was sudden and swift and high, -
-

I am more, I know, than the iron town that snared his sons from the dreams he
knew.
I am love for the freedom and urge of his soil, its rough green flooring, its
roof of blue.
Maybe I'm love of his work as well -- maybe I'm Peter Jersey, too.





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