Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE NINE GREEN GLENS, by JOHN STEVENSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE NINE GREEN GLENS, by                    
First Line: Sorrow and strife be far away
Last Line: Between me and the arctic pole.


Sorrow and strife be far away
From these sweet vales and hills for aye!
O who would think of sword and death
That feels the living sea's sweet breath
Blow through the nine green glens to-day?

Who sees the blue smoke skyward-curl'd
From many a lowly glen hearthstone,
Each with a pleasure and a pain,
A pathos and romance its own;
Each little house a world?

Who that can hear the voice of morn,
The whisper of the springing corn,
Who understands the babbling rills,
The weird wild music of the hills,
And nameless voices heaven-born?

Sure am I that the Antrim glen
Holds mysteries beyond our ken,
And that there moves in wind and sea,
And rock and stream, and weed and tree,
A life not far from the life of men.

Dear Mother Earth, I know within,
That leaf and I are next of kin--
The rowan high by blood is near,
The primrose is a sister dear,
Brother of mine the mountain whin.

Now on the ocean shore I stand,
The sea-worn cliff on either hand,
And farther north no other land;
Only the long sea-heave and roll
Between me and the Arctic pole.





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