Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SAINT CESAIRE, by WILSON PUGSLEY MACDONALD Poet's Biography First Line: A village quaint is saint cesaire Last Line: Beneath her mistletoe and holly. Subject(s): Villages | ||||||||
A VILLAGE quaint is Saint Cesaire, With homes that brew their own content. Her single spire points high in air To show where her departed went. No town she knows save Montreal, And that is farther off than Heaven. The parish priest is straight and tall Although his years are sixty-seven. This padre is a kindly chief Who bravely lifts the common care, The gray hairs of the parish grief Are numbered in his whitened hair. He knows not any change of creed, Nor days of doubt, nor nights of worry, But plants the old and silent seed Amid the gardens of our hurry. If you should go to Saint Cesaire, And let no scorn betray your eye, The gentle priest will show you there Men unafraid to live or die. You'll miss the city's silk and ease That indolence delights to cherish; But more enduring gifts than these Are heaped upon this humble parish. Afar, the airplane drones her path; The angry motor shakes the town; The swift leviathan, in wrath, Ploughs the green ocean up and down -- But here is still the plodding horse And slow quatre-rous and rustic staring: Yet here is freedom from remorse That follows in the paths of daring. If brick and stone and gold are wealth Then Saint Cesaire is poor, in truth. But if there's gold in love and health, In age that keeps the soul of youth, In youth that holds its fevered way Serenely 'mid the days of folly, Then Saint Cesaire is rich to-day Beneath her mistletoe and holly. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE HOURS; FOR INGRID ERHARDT, 1951-1971 by NORMAN DUBIE STREETS OF PEARL AND GOLD by CAROLYN KIZER THE LITTLE VILLAGE by ERIC PANKEY VILLAGE IN LATE SUMMER by CARL SANDBURG IN THE BERKSHIRE HILLS by LOUIS UNTERMEYER THE DESERTED VILLAGE by OLIVER GOLDSMITH CITY AND VILLAGE by ALEXANDER ANDERSON A GYPSY SONG by WILSON PUGSLEY MACDONALD |
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