Classic and Contemporary Poetry
OUR NEIGHBOR, by HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD Poet's Biography First Line: Old neighbor, for how many a year Last Line: Into horizons vaster far! Subject(s): New England | ||||||||
OLD neighbor, for how many a year The same horizon, stretching here, Has held us in its happy bound From Rivermouth to Ipswich Sound! How many a wave-washed day we've seen Above that low horizon lean, And marked within the Merrimack The selfsame sunset reddening back, Or in the Powow's shining stream, That silent river of a dream! Where Craneneck o'er the woody gloom Lifts her steep mile of apple-bloom; Where Salisbury Sands, in yellow length, With the great breakers measure strength; Where Artichoke in shadow slides, The lily on her painted tides, -- There's naught in the enchanted view That does not seem a part of you: Your legends hang on every hill, Your songs have made it dearer still. Yours is the river-road; and yours Are all the mighty meadow floors Where the long Hampton levels lie Alone between the sea and sky. Sweeter in Follymill shall blow The mayflowers, that you loved them so; Prouder Deer Island's ancient pines Toss to their measure in your lines; And purpler gleam old Appledore, Because your foot has trod her shore. Still shall the great Cape wade to meet The storms that fawn about her feet, The summer evening linger late In many-rivered Stackyard-Gate, When we, when all your people here, Have fled. But, like the atmosphere, You still the region shall surround, The spirit of the sacred ground, Though you have risen, as mounts the star, Into horizons vaster far! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NEW ENGLAND, AUTUMN by NORMAN DUBIE NEW ENGLAND, SPRINGTIME by NORMAN DUBIE POPHAM OF THE NEW SONG: 5; FOR R.P. BLACKMUR by NORMAN DUBIE ADDRESS TO THE SCHOLARS OF NEW ENGLAND by JOHN CROWE RANSOM NEW ENGLAND by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS NEW ENGLAND by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON SPRING IN NEW ENGLAND by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH RETREATS by CARRIE ADAMS BERRY MUSIC IN THE NIGHT by HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD |
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