Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NORTHAMPTON, by HENRY THEODORE TUCKERMAN


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NORTHAMPTON, by                 Poet's Biography
First Line: Ere from thy calm seclusion parted
Last Line: The heights of sweet fiesole.
Subject(s): Northampton, Massachusetts


ERE from thy calm seclusion parted,
O fairest village of the plain!
The thoughts that here to life have started
Draw me to Nature's heart again.

The tasselled maize, full grain or clover,
Far o'er the level meadow grows,
And through it, like a wayward rover,
The noble river gently flows.

Majestic elms, with trunks unshaken
By all the storms an age can bring,
Trail sprays whose rest the zephyrs waken,
Yet lithesome with the juice of spring.

By sportive airs the foliage lifted,
Each green leaf shows its white below,
As foam on emerald waves is drifted,
Their tints alternate come and go.

And when the distant mountain ranges
In moonlight or blue mist are clad,
Oft memory all the landscape changes,
And pensive thoughts are blent with glad.

For then, as in a dream Elysian,
Val d'Arno's fair and loved domain
Seems, to my rapt yet waking vision,
To yield familiar charms again.

Save that for dome and turret hoary,
Amid the central valley lies
A white church-spire unknown to story,
And smoke-wreaths from a cottage rise.

On Holyoke's summit woods are frowning,
No line of cypresses we see,
Nor convent old with beauty crowning
The heights of sweet Fiesole.





Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net