Western Windows And Other Poems

pple-trees that, when the place was rough With the wild forests, and the land was new, He planted: one, departed long ago, But still a presence unforgotten here, Who hless'd me in my boyhood, with his hands That seem'd like one's anointed. Gentle, strong, And warm'd with sunny goodness, warming all, Was he, familiar by the reverend name Of Uncle Gardner in our neighborhood: His love had grown to common property By ties that Nature draws from man to man, And so at last had claim'd the bond of blood. The Pioneer's Chimney. He was an elder in the land, and held His first proprietary right, it seem'd, From Nature's self; for, in an earlier day, He came with others, who of old had reach'd Their neighbor hands across New England farms, Over the mountains to this Western Land? A journey long and slow and perilous, With many hardships and the homesick look Of wife and children backward; chose his farm, Builded his house, and clear'd, by hard degrees, Acres that years ago were meadows broad, Or wheat-fields rocking in the summer heat. His children grew, and son and daughter pass'd Into the world that grew around, and some Into that world which evermore unseen Is still about us, and the graveyard where Their bodies slept (a few half sinking stones, A stranger's eyes would hardly see them, show Seventy rods yonder in the higher ground) Gave still a tenderer title, year by year, To the dear places earn'd by earlier toil. Meanwhile the years that made these wo...