Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE PURITAN'S SEED, by CLARK EMERY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE PURITAN'S SEED, by                    
First Line: Where hills austerely solemn frowned
Last Line: And men were molded by the hills.
Subject(s): Puritans


Where hills austerely solemn frowned
And men were molded by the hills,
Matthew Earnest Emery --
Who thought a thrush's limpid trills
Were echoes of the Devil's psalm,
And life a dismal testing-place
By rigor bound and stern decree --
With serious purpose bred a race.

In faithful poring on the Book
He wore his eyes to needle-points
Albeit sure he owned a place
Among the chosen Christ anoints.
The cedars of lost Lebanon
Transcended in his pious sight
The pine that whispered by his door
In the stillness of the night.

His patriarchal lips breathed prayers,
But not the slightest hint of song
Lent rhythm to his axe's blows
That rang, hill-echoed, all year long.
The bluish wisp of smoke that told
Of homely comforts, bed, and wife,
Was sheerly blotted from the mind
That peered beyond this earthly life.

Three centuries have rolled away
Into the limbo of past time,
And I, the latest of the race,
Act in the universal mime.
I, latest of the unbroken race
That proudly brings the heritage
Of Hampshire hills into this land
Of alkali and sand and sage.

But by some ludicrous mistake
I cannot play a tragic part,
I cannot feel that sin is pumped
Through all my arteries by my heart.
Nor yet am I resigned to sit
In cloistered goodness, there to wait
The happy moment when my soul
At length unlocks the life-barred gate.

For visions at the dead of noon,
When waves of heat like phantoms dance,
And swoon, and swirl again to sigh
Forbidden syllables, I'd chance
My prayer-bench in heaven's nave,
And then forego the poignant light,
The visions, for agnostic loves
Discreet beneath the cowl of night.

But even in these hallowed moments,
Even when I question so,
Thou Shalt Not flashes on my brain
And burns with unremittent glow.
And then I know that I am born
Of one who scorned a thrush's trills
Where hills austerely solemn frowned,
And men were molded by the hills.





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