Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THANKSGIVING NIGHT; MEMORIES OF NEW HAMPSHIRE IN ILLINOIS, by EDNA DEAN PROCTOR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THANKSGIVING NIGHT; MEMORIES OF NEW HAMPSHIRE IN ILLINOIS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Across the prairie moans the wind
Last Line: The ancient virtues of the hills!
Alternate Author Name(s): Dean
Subject(s): Holidays; Illinois; New Hampshire; Thanksgiving


ACROSS the prairie moans the wind,
And morn will come with whirling snow;
Now bolt the door, and bar the blind;
The guests are gone, the fire is low.
We'll heap the grate, and in its blaze
This Illinois Thanksgiving night,
Call back the loved of other days,
And the old home of our delight.

Ah, Mary! here are thousand things
I never thought to see or own:—
Great corn-fields where the sunlight flings
Its gold, nor finds one marring stone;
And breadths of waving wheat; and herds
Unnumbered on the prairies wide;
And brighter flowers, and rarer birds,
That flame and sing on every side.

But oh, to-night I'm in the hills!
I hear the wind sweep through the pines!
And see the lakes, the laughing rills,
The far horizon's mountain lines!
Monadnock's stream, the river flows
By bordering elms and meadows down,
Dark where the bridge its shadow throws,
And the tall church-spire marks the town;

The spire whose bell ran high and clear,
Each Sabbath morn the country round,
And mournful tolled when passed the bier
Slow-moving to the burial ground.
And on the common's grassy square
The meeting-house looms white and grim,
Its sounding-board still poised in air,
Though done with sermon, psalm, and hymn.

I search for Mayflowers in the dell —
Oh, never bloom was half so fair!
And lean above the moss-grown well
To see my face reflected there.
The glad thrush warbles by the wood;
The robin makes the orchard gay;
And from the alders' solitude
The cuckoo calls at break of day.

Throned on the fragrant hay I ride
Back to the barn in golden eves,
And gather chestnuts brown, and hide
In autumn noons amid the sheaves;
Or, shouting till the echoes wake,
Hunt blithe for eggs among the mows,
And up the brook, and through the brake,
From the far ridge bring home the cows.

And when Kearsarge is crowned with snow,
And dry leaves sweep along the way,
Comes on, with love and mirth aglow,
November's pride, Thanksgiving Day.
What fires are lit! what feasts are set!
What welcome waits for every comer!
Though drifts may fall and north winds fret,
Within is joy and song and summer.

Alas! that blazing hearth is cold!
The hill stands desolate and bare!
No stir at morn; no flocks in fold;
No children's laugh to charm the air!
Nor orchards blush, nor lilacs blow;
And fields once rich with corn and clover
Are pastures lone the foxes know,
And the shy plover whistles over.

While they who filled the house with cheer,
Though storms beat wild against the pane,
Have slumbered low this many a year
Where slope the pine-woods to the plain.
Oh, memories fond! Oh, sweet regret!
Oh, loves and scenes I still behold!
My eyes are dim with tears —and yet
The new is noble as the old.

A larger life in larger lands;
A wider heaven and warmer suns;
God grant that while Monadnock stands,
And Mississippi seaward runs —
While homes we build, and harvests reap,
While love is dear and memory thrills,
With reverent faith the prairies keep
The ancient virtues of the hills!





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