Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HOWELLS'S HOMES, by AMOS RUSSEL WELLS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HOWELLS'S HOMES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hills of ohio, woods and shining plains
Last Line: And seeks for better yet.
Subject(s): Home; Howells, William Dean (1837-1920); Ohio


Hills of Ohio, woods and shining plains,
Pioneer valleys radiant with the morn,
Daring and sure in all your gallant veins,
Of you was Howells born.

Out of the land of drudging pioneers,
Ponderous forms with only eyes aflame,
The land of patience grimly conquering fears,
Our patient Howells came.

Friendly he saw the bold exploring folk,
Noted the ways their blundering spirits took,
Into what temples clumsily they broke --
And wrote it in a book.

Gravely Ohio gave him of her best,
The steady plough, the axe's rise and fall,
The eager eye that loves a venturing quest;
Gravely he took it all.

Then with his Buckeye hold on circumstance,
He passed to Italy, the land of dreams,
To Italy, the home of high romance
And dim poetic gleams.

What stranger meeting through the shifting years
Than this, the stubborn son of modern ways,
Plunged, from the sharp light of the pioneers,
To old Venetian haze!

Yet Venice also of her best bestowed,
Her mellowness of kindly tolerant age,
Her tempered sun that henceforth calmly glowed
Upon his broadening page.

Never henceforth, in clash of western trade,
In greed's hot frenzy and impetuous cries,
Could he forget the still cathedral shade,
The mirrored Bridge of Sighs.

Then came the pioneer to Boston Town,
Boston, the mother home of pioneers,
Boston, that never yet has settled down
Through all her restless years.

And gladly Boston took him to her heart,
Her gay old heart, alert and ardent still.
Deeply he loved her, from the Quincy Mart
To sober Beacon Hill.

He shifted homes: to Cambridge ancient-new,
Louisburg Square that wears its crown by stealth,
Bright Beacon Street, and then the Avenue
Of most un-Commonwealth.

He loved his Boston: all her plodding ways
That twisted out into the universe,
Her whimsies and stabilities, her gaze
Quietly sure -- or worse.

He wrote his Boston, from the Common fair
To Albany Station where all contrasts meet,
From shadowy warehouse to the classic air
Of stately Beacon Street.

And Boston also gave him of her best,
Her rattling wagon tethered to a star,
Her fond ideals heavily possessed
By all the things that are.

And last he came -- where else in all the world? --
Led by those lines so sure in every torque,
To where all currents fiercely met and swirled,
All people's home, New York.

For he was all men's brother. In his soul
Lived the warm, pulsing prayer for all men's good,
And through his books uniting currents roll,
The flood of brotherhood.

Out in the streets of that amazing scene,
In every throng he walked a vital part,
No one he found or common or unclean
Or stranger to his heart.

Old world and new, he bound them both in one.
Set in that focus of the human race
He only knew the universal sun,
The groping human face.

And still -- and still -- through all his gracious years,
He never lost the light of boyhood days,
The eager questing of the pioneers,
The swift Ohio ways.

And still, in whatsoever glowing star
His ardent and unresting feet are set,
I know he dearly loves the things that are,
And seeks for better yet.





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