Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NEW HAMPSHIRE, by EDNA DEAN PROCTOR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NEW HAMPSHIRE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A goodly realm!' said captain smith
Last Line: Strength and glory be thine forever!
Alternate Author Name(s): Dean
Subject(s): New Hampshire


'A GOODLY realm!' said Captain Smith,
Scanning the coast by the Isles of Shoals,
While the wind blew fair, as in Indian myth
Blows the breeze from the Land of Souls;
Blew from the marshes of Hampton spread
Level and green that summer day,
And over the brow of Great Boar's Head
From the pines that stretched to the west away;
And sunset died on the rippling sea,
Ere to the south, with the wind, sailed he.
But he told the story in London streets,
And again to court and Prince and King;
'A truce,' men cried, 'to Virginia's heats;
The North is the land of hope and spring!'
And in sixteen hundred and twenty-three,
For Dover meadows and Portsmouth river,
Bold and earnest they crossed the sea,
And the realm was theirs and ours forever!
Up from Piscataqua's brine and spray,
Slowly, slowly they made their way
Back to Merrimack's eager tide
Poured through its meadows rich and wide;
And to Sunapee's lake whose cloistered shores
Had heard but the dip of the Red Man's oars;
And westward turned for the warmer gales
And the wealth of Connecticut's intervales;
And to Winnipesaukee's tranquil sea,
Bosomed in hills and bright with isles,
Asleep in the shadow of Ossipee,
Or fair as Eden when sunlight smiles; —
Up and on to the mountains piled,
Peak o'er peak, in the northern air,
Home of streams and of winds that wild
Torrent and tempest valeward bear—
Where the great Stone-Face looms changeless, calm
As the Sphinx that couches on Egypt's sands,
And the fir and the sassafras yield their balm
Sweet as the odors of morning-lands —
Where the eagle floats in the summer noon,
While his comrade-clouds drift, silent, by,
And the waters fill with a mystic tune
The fane the cliffs have built to the sky!
And, beyond, to the woods where the huge moose browsed,
And the dun deer drank at the rill unroused
By hound or horn, and the partridge brood
Was alone in the leafy solitude;
And the lake where the beaver housed her young,
And the loon's shrill cry from the border rung —
The lake whence the Beauteous River flows,
Its fountains fed by Canadian snows.
What were the labors of Hercules
To the toils of heroes such as these? —
Guarding their homes from savage foes
Cruel as fiends in craft and scorn;
Felling the forest with mighty blows;
Planting the meadow plots with corn;
Hunting the hungry wolf to his lair;
Trapping the panther and prowling bear;
Rearing, in faith by sorrow tried,
The church and the schoolhouse, side by side;
Fighting the French on the long frontier,
From Louisburg, set in the sea's domains,
To proud Quebec and the woods that hear
Ohio glide to the sunset plains;
And when rest and comfort they yearned to see,
Risking their all to be nobly free!

Honor and love for the valiant dead!
With reverent breath let their names be read —
Hiltons, Pepperells, Sullivans, Weares,
Broad is the scroll the list that bears
Of men as ardent and brave and true
As ever land in its peril knew,
And women of pure and glowing lives
Meet to be heroes' mothers and wives!
For not alone for the golden maize,
And the fisher's spoils from the teeming bays,
And the treasures of forest and hill and mine,
They gave their barks to the stormy brine —
Liberty, Learning, righteous Law,
Shone in the vision they dimly saw
Of the Age to come and the Land to be;
And, looking to Heaven, fervently
They labored and longed, through the dawning gray,
For the blessed break of that larger day!

When the wail of Harvard in sore distress
Came to their ears through the wilderness,—
Harvard, the hope of the colonies twain,
Planted with prayers by the lonely main —
It was loyal, struggling Portsmouth town
That sent this gracious message down:
'Wishing our gratitude to prove,
And the country and General Court to move
For the infant College beset with fears,
(Its loss an omen of ill would be!)
We promise to pay it, for seven years,
Sixty pounds sterling, an annual sum,
Trusting that fuller aid will come' —
And the Court and the country heard their plea,
And the sapling grew to the wide-boughed tree.
And when a century had fled,
And the war for Freedom thrilled with dread
Yet welcome summons every home —
By the firelit hearth, 'neath the starry dome,
They vowed that never their love should wane
For the holy cause they burned to gain,
Till right should rule, and the strife be done!
List to the generous deed of one: —
In the Revolution's darkest days
The Legislature at Exeter met;
Money and men they fain would raise,
And despair on every face was set
As news of the army's need was read;
Then, in the hush, John Langdon said:
'Three thousand dollars have I in gold;
For as much I will pledge the plate I hold;
Eighty casks of Tobago rum;
All is the country's. The time will come,
If we conquer, when amply the debt she'll pay;
If we fail, our property's worthless.' A ray
Of hope cheered the gloom, while the Governor said:
'For a regiment now, with Stark at its head!'
And the boon we gained through the noble lender
Was the Bennington day and Burgoyne's surrender!

Conflict over and weary quest,
Hid in their hallowed graves they rest,
Nor the voice of love, nor the cannon's roar
Wins them to field or fireside more!
Did the glory go from the hills with them?
Nay! for the sons are true to the sires!
And the gems they have set in our diadem
Burn with as rare and brilliant fires;
And the woodland streams and the mountain airs
Sing of the fathers' fame with theirs!
One, in the shadow of lone Kearsarge
Nurtured for power, like the fabled charge
Of the gods, by Pelion's woody marge; —
So lofty his eloquence, stately his mien,
That, could he have walked the Olympian plain,
The worshiping, wondering crowds had seen
Jove descend o'er the feast to reign!
And one, with a brow as Balder's fair,
And his life the grandeur of love and peace; —
Easing the burdens the race must bear,
Toiling for good that all might share,
Till his white soul found its glad release!
And one — a tall Corinthian column,
Of the temple of justice prop and pride —
The judge unstained, the patriot tried,
Gone to the bar supernal, solemn,
Nor left his peer by Themis' side!
Ah! when the Old World counts her kings,
And from splendor of castle and palace brings
The dainty lords her monarchies mould,
We'll turn to the hills and say, 'Behold
Webster, and Greeley, and Chase, for three
Princes of our Democracy!'
Land of the cliff, the stream, the pine,
Blessing and honor and peace be thine!
Still may thy giant mountains rise,
Lifting their snows to the blue of June,
And the south wind breathe its tenderest sighs
Over thy fields in the harvest moon!
And the river of rivers, Merrimack,
Whose current never shall faint or lack
While the lakes and the bounteous springs remain —
Welcome the myriad brooks and rills
Winding through meadows, leaping from hills,
To brim its banks for the waiting wheels
That thrill and fly to its dash and roar
Till the rocks are passed, and the sea-fog steals
Over its tide by Newbury's shore! —
For the river of rivers is Merrimack,
Whether it foams with the mountain rain,
Or toils in the mill-race, deep and black,
Or, conqueror, rolls to the ocean plain!
And still may the hill, the vale, the glen,
Give thee the might of heroic men,
And the grace of women pure and fair
As the Mayflower's bloom when the woods are bare;
And Truth and Freedom aye find in thee
Their surest warrant of victory; —
Land of fame and of high endeavor,
Strength and glory be thine forever!





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