Famous Long Relationship Poems

The Generations of Men

 A governor it was proclaimed this time, 
When all who would come seeking in New Hampshire 
Ancestral 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 gone. 
Someone had literally run to earth 
In an old cellar hole in a by-road 
The origin of all the family there. 
Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe 
That now not all the houses left in town 
Made shift to shelter them without the help 
Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard. 
They were at Bow, but that was not enough: 
Nothing would do but they must fix a day 
To stand together on the crater's verge 
That turned them on the world, and try to fathom 
The past and get some strangeness out of it. 
But rain spoiled all. The day began uncertain, 
With clouds low trailing and moments of rain that misted. 
The young folk held some hope out to each other 
Till well toward noon when the storm settled down 
With a swish in the grass. "What if the others 
Are there," they said. "It isn't...
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