Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, CAPE COD, by AMOS RUSSEL WELLS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CAPE COD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A second holland stolen from the sea
Last Line: "be still, and know your god!"
Subject(s): Cape Cod


A second Holland stolen from the sea
By a giant in his glee,
It lies, a tumbled stretch of hasty sand
Thrown by that pilfering hand.
And evermore the injured, angry main
Would get it back again,
Gnawing and tearing with a savage roar
At this unlawful shore.

For twenty leagues the bared, uplifted arm
Confronts the ocean's harm.
Forth reaching from a continent, it braves
Whatever tempest raves.
Yet still, beset with strifes that never cease,
Within, it harbors peace,
And hill and hollowed valley, mile on mile,
Greet us with tender smile.

Here lie the ancient villages demure,
Secluded and secure,
Wrapped in the shimmering historic haze
Of gentle Pilgrim days.
Here Indian and Hessian, strangely tame,
Forget their olden fame;
Here, mystically drawn from overseas,
Are swarthy Portuguese.

Serene, the wildernesses stretch away
With woodland glories gay,
Blue-berried, fragrant, thick with stunted growth,
Moorland and forest, both.
Deep in their solitudes the hermit lake
Is fringed with birch and brake.
And through the stillness, far from all abodes,
Wind dim and silent roads.

The cranberry, in level fruited fields,
A spicy harvest yields,
And all the springtime glades are odorous
With virgin arbutus.
Above the tangled reach of brier and brush
Hymns loud the holy thrush,
While to a hidden pool, umbrageous, clear,
Plunges the thirsty deer.

From these romantic realms how faint and far
The modern turmoils are!
What quietness the meadowy uplands hold,
Bequeathed from days of old!
And how, in these hushed woods so seldom stirred,
One tranquil voice is heard --
From these quaint ways the Pilgrim feet have trod:
"Be still, and know your God!"





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