Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NANTASKET, by MARY CLEMMER AMES HUDSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NANTASKET, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Fair is thy face, nantasket
Last Line: With its spell of space and air.
Alternate Author Name(s): Clemmer, Mary; Ames, Mary Clemmer
Subject(s): Nantasket, Massachusetts; Nature


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,
Where the watchman tends his light,
And sets his perilous beacon,
A star in the stormiest night.

Over thy vast sea highway
The great ships slide from sight,
And flocks of winged phantoms
Flit by, like birds in flight.
Over the toppling sea-wall
The home-bound dories float,
And I watch the patient fisherman
Bend in his anchored boat.

I am alone with Nature;
With the glad September day.
The leaning hills above me
With golden-rod are gay,
Across the fields of ether
Flit butterflies at play,
And cones of garnet sumach
Glow down the country way.

The autumn dandelion
Along the roadside burns;
Down from the lichened bowlders
Quiver the plumed ferns;
The cream-white silk of the milkweed
Floats from its sea-green pod;
Out from the mossy rock-seams
Flashes the golden-rod.

The woodbine's scarlet banners
Flaunt from their towers of stone;
The wan, wild morning-glory
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.

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
Closes its fringed eyes,
And waits the later glory
Of October's yellow skies.

Within the sea-washed meadow
The wild grape climbs the wall,
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,
Far out on airy barge.

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.
The tiny boom of the beetle
Strikes the shining rocks below;
The gauzy oar of the dragon-fly
Is beating to and fro.

As the lovely ghost of the thistle
Goes sailing softly by;
Glad in its second summer
Hums the awakened fly;
The cumulate cry of the cricket
Pierces the amber noon;
In from the vast sea-spaces comes
The clear call of the loon;
Over and through it all I hear
Ocean's pervasive rune.

Against the warm sea-beaches
Rush 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,
As if never human anguish,
As if never human pain,
Sought the healing draught of Lethe,
Beyond the gleaming plain.

Fair is the earth behind me,
Vast is the sea before,
Away through the misty dimness
Glimmers a further shore.
It is no realm enchanted,
It cannot be more fair
Than this nook of Nature's Kingdom,
With its spell of space and air.





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