I A single sleighbell, tinkling down The virgin road that skirts the wood, Makes poignant to the lonely town Its silence and its solitude. A single taper's feeble flare Makes darker by its lonely light The cold and empty farmsteads square That blackly loom to left and right; And she who sews, by that dim flame, The patient quilt spread on her knees, Hears from her heirloom quilting-frame The frolic of forgotten bees. Yea, all the dying village thrills With echoes of its cheerful past, The golden days of Salem Hills; Its only golden days? Its last? II From Salem Hills a voiceless cry Along the darkened valley rolls. Hear it, great ship, and forward ply With thy rich freight of venturous souls. Hear it, O thronging lower deck, Brave homestead-seekers come from far; And crowd the rail, and crane the neck; In Salem Hills your homesteads are! Where flourish now the brier and thorn, The barley and the wheat shall spring, And valleys standing thick with corn (Praise God, my heart!), shall laugh and sing. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS: 42. FAREWELL TO JULIET (4) by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE WARMTH OF MEMORY by BERTON BRALEY LINES WRITTEN AT LOUDON MANSE by ROBERT BURNS AELLA: MYNSTRELLES SONGE by THOMAS CHATTERTON ECLOGUE THE THIRD; A MAN, A WOMAN, SIR ROGER by THOMAS CHATTERTON SONG. MONTROSS by CHARLES COTTON UPON THE CHAIR MADE OUT OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE'S SHIP ... by ABRAHAM COWLEY |