The Frost Spirit and Others from Poems of Nature, - Poems Subjective and Reminiscent and Religious Poems - Volume II., the Works of Whittier by John Greenleaf Whittier
page 49 of 56 (87%)
page 49 of 56 (87%)
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Our vales are sweet with fern and rose,
Our hills are maple-crowned; But not from them our fathers chose The village burying-ground. The dreariest spot in all the land To Death they set apart; With scanty grace from Nature's hand, And none from that of Art. A winding wall of mossy stone, Frost-flung and broken, lines A lonesome acre thinly grown With grass and wandering vines. Without the wall a birch-tree shows Its drooped and tasselled head; Within, a stag-horned sumach grows, Fern-leafed, with spikes of red. There, sheep that graze the neighboring plain Like white ghosts come and go, The farm-horse drags his fetlock chain, The cow-bell tinkles slow. Low moans the river from its bed, The distant pines reply; Like mourners shrinking from the dead, They stand apart and sigh. |
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