Written by
Mark Doty |
Because she could find no one else to paint a picture of the old family place where she and her sisters lived.
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she attended an adult education class in Montpelier.
In one evening Bessie Drennan learned everything she would need to accomplish her goals.
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The Vermont Folklife Center Newsletter
Bessie, you've made space dizzy
with your perfected technique for snow:
white spatters and a dry brush
feathering everything in the world
seem to make the firmament fly.
Four roads converge on the heart of town,
this knot of white and yellow houses
angling off kilter, their astigmatic windows
almost all in rows.
Lucky the skater
threading the yellow tavern's quilt-sized pond,
the yellow dogs who punctuate the village
where our occupations are chasing
and being chaste, sleighing and sledding
and snowshoeing from house to house
in our conical, flamelike hats.
Even the barns are sliding in snow,
though the birches are all golden
and one maple blazes without being consumed.
Is it from a hill nearby we're watching,
or somewhere in the sky? Could we be flying
on slick runners down into the village?
Is that mare with the elegant legs
truly the size of a house,
and is this the store where everyone bought
those pointed hats, the snowshoes that angle
in contradictory directions?
Isn't that Rin Tin Tin, bigtongued
and bounding and in two places at once?
Down there in the world's corner two children
steal away onto the frozen pond,
carrying their toboggan.
Even the weathervanes
--bounding fish, a sailing stag--look happy.
The houses are swaying, Bessie,
and nothing is grounded in shadow,
set loose by weather and art
from gravity's constraints.
And though I think this man is falling,
is it anything but joyous,
the arc his red scarf
transcribes in the air?
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Written by
Henry Van Dyke |
Dear to my heart are the ancestral dwellings of America,
Dearer than if they were haunted by ghosts of royal splendour;
These are the homes that were built by the brave beginners of a nation,
They are simple enough to be great, and full of a friendly dignity.
I love the old white farmhouses nestled in New England valleys,
Ample and long and low, with elm-trees feathering over them:
Borders of box in the yard, and lilacs, and old-fashioned Howers,
A fan-light above the door, and little square panes in the windows,
The wood-shed piled with maple and birch and hickory ready for winter,
The gambrel-roof with its garret crowded with household relics, --
All the tokens of prudent thrift and the spirit of self-reliance.
I love the look of the shingled houses that front the ocean;
Their backs are bowed, and their lichened sides are weather-beaten;
Soft in their colour as grey pearls, they are full of patience and courage.
They seem to grow out of the rocks, there is something indomitable about them:
Facing the briny wind in a lonely land they stand undaunted,
While the thin blue line of smoke from the square-built chimney rises,
Telling of shelter for man, with room for a hearth and a cradle.
I love the stately southern mansions with their tall white columns,
They look through avenues of trees, over fields where the cotton is growing;
I can see the flutter of white frocks along their shady porches,
Music and laughter float from the windows, the yards are full of hounds and horses.
They have all ridden away, yet the houses have not forgotten,
They are proud of their name and place, and their doors are always open,
For the thing they remember best is the pride of their ancient hospitality.
In the towns I love the discreet and tranquil Quaker dwellings,
With their demure brick faces and immaculate white-stone doorsteps;
And the gabled houses of the Dutch, with their high stoops and iron railings,
(I can see their little brass knobs shining in the morning sunlight);
And the solid houses of the descendants of the Puritans,
Fronting the street with their narrow doors and dormer-windows;
And the triple-galleried, many-pillared mansions of Charleston,
Standing sideways in their gardens full of roses and magnolias.
Yes, they are all dear to my heart, and in my eyes they are beautiful;
For under their roofs were nourished the thoughts that have made the nation;
The glory and strength of America came from her ancestral dwellings.
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Written by
Thomas Moore |
"What! still those two infernal questions,
That with our meals our slumbers mix --
That spoil our tempers and digestions --
Eternal Corn and Catholics!
Gods! were there ever two such bores?
Nothing else talk'd of night or morn --
Nothing in doors, or out of doors,
But endless Catholics and Corn!
Never was such a brace of pests --
While Ministers, still worse than either,
Skill'd but in feathering their nests,
Plague us with both, and settle neither.
So addled in my cranium meet
Popery and Corn, that oft I doubt,
Whether this year, 'twas bonded Wheat
Or bonded Papists, they let out.
Here, landlords, here, polemics nail you,
Arm'd with all rubbish they can rake up;
Prices and Texts at once assail you --
From Daniel these, and those from Jacob.
And when you sleep, with head still torn
Between the two, their shapes you mix,
Till sometimes Catholics seem Corn --
Then Corn again seems Catholics.
Now, Dantzic wheat before you floats --
Now, Jesuits from California --
Now, Ceres, link'd with Titus Oats,
Comes dancing through the "Porta Cornea.
"
Oft, too, the Corn grows animate,
And a whole crop of heads appears,
Like Papists, bearding Church and State --
Themselves, together by the ears!
In short, these torments never cease;
And oft I wish myself transferr'd off
To some far, lonely land of peace,
Where Corn or Papists ne'er were heard of.
Yes, waft me, Parry, to the Pole,
For -- if my fate is to be chosen
'Twixt bores and icebergs -- on my soul,
I'd rather, of the two, be frozen!
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Written by
John Berryman |
Disengaged, bloody, Henry rose from the shell
where in theior racing start his seat got wedged
under his knifing knees,
he did it on the runners, feathering,
being bow, catching no crab.
The ridges were sore
& tore chamois.
It was not done with ease.
So Henry was a hero, malgré lui,
that day, for blundering; until & after the coach
said this & which to him.
That happy day, whenas the pregnant back
of Number Two returned, and he'd no choice
but to make for it room.
Therefore he rowed rowed rowed.
They did not win.
Forever in the winning & losing since
of his own crew, or rather
in the weird regattas of this afterworld,
cheer for the foe.
He sat himself to time
the blue father.
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