Blue-Stocking Hollow

Traveler, rest. The time of man runs on;
Our home is far across the western wave
Back of whose steeps, forsaken and foregone,
Lost continents ebb and we have no power to save.
The unending cycle breaks against the strand
Where blue tidewater laps our greener land.
And once the Virginian voyage brings us clear,
The hoodless eagles of the New World skies
Towering, unshackle us, and the wild geese rise,
Hurling southward with invincible wing
Omens unriddled for our journeying.
Rough pilgrims, faring far, whose Hesperus
Stooped by the piney woods or mountain cove,
or whom the Buffalo Gods to the perilous
Lift of the Great Divide and the redwood grove
Spoke on and bid lay down from sea to sea
The sill and hearthstone of our destiny.
Salving our wounds, from the moody kings we came,
And even while kinsmen's shoulders raised and set
The first log true, bethought us of a name
To seal the firm lips of our unregret,
To charm the door against the former age
And bless the lintel of our hermitage.
Recite then while the inviolate hearth-flame leaps
How Ilion fell, and, hound at knee, recall
Platonic converse, Let the screech-owl keep
Watch where the fat maize crowds the forest wall.
High by the talking waters grows the cane;
Wild by the salt-lick herds the forest game.
And let the graybeard say when men and maids
Come for his blessing: "This I leave to you!
The Indian dream came on me in these glades,
And some strange bird-or-beast word named me new
Peace be to all who keep the wilderness.
Cursed be the child who lets the freehold pass.

-Donald Davidson, from "The Hermitage"