There’s a place called Far-away MeadowWe never shall mow in again,Or such is the talk at the farmhouse:The meadow is finished with men.Then now is the chance for the flowersThat can’t stand mowers and plowers.It must be now, through, in…

I staid the night for shelter at a farmBehind the mountains, with a mother and son,Two old-believers. They did all the talking. MOTHER Folks think a witch who has familiar spiritsShe could call up to pass a winter evening,But won’t,…

More than halfway up the passWas a spring with a broken drinking glass,And whether the farmer drank or notHis mare was sure to observe the spotBy cramping the wheel on a water-bar,turning her forehead with a star,And straining her ribs…

The three stood listening to a fresh accessOf wind that caught against the house a moment,Gulped snow, and then blew free again-the ColesDressed, but dishevelled from some hours of sleep,Meserve belittled in the great skin coat he wore. Meserve was…

What tree may not the fig be gathered from?The grape may not be gathered from the birch?It’s all you know the grape, or know the birch.As a girl gathered from the birch myselfEqually with my weight in grapes, one autumn,I…

The surest thing there is is we are riders,And though none too successful at it, guiders,Through everything presented, land and tideAnd now the very air, of what we ride. What is this talked-of mystery of birthBut being mounted bareback on…

I stay;But it isn’t as ifThere wasn’t always Hudson’s BayAnd the fur trade,A small skiffAnd a paddle blade. I can just see my tent pegged,And me on the floor,Cross-legged,And a trapper looking in at the doorWith furs to sell. His…

I let myself in at the kitchen door.‘It’s you,’ she said. ‘I can’t get up. Forgive meNot answering your knock. I can no moreLet people in than I can keep them out.I’m getting too old for my size, I tell…

I met a lady from the South who said(You won’t believe she said it, but she said it):‘None of my family ever worked, or hadA thing to sell.’ I don’t suppose the workMuch matters. You may work for all of…

Builder, in building the little house,In every way you may please yourself;But please please me in the kitchen chimney:Don’t build me a chimney upon a shelf. However far you must go for bricks,Whatever they cost a-piece or a pound,But me…

A governor it was proclaimed this time,When all who would come seeking in New HampshireAncestral memories might come together.And those of the name Stark gathered in Bow,A rock-strewn town where farming has fallen off,And sprout-lands flourish where the axe has…

NOW that they’ve got it settled whose I be,I’m going to tell them something they won’t like:They’ve got it settled wrong, and I can prove it.Flattered I must be to have two towns fightingTo make a present of me to…