Sorrow and toil and the wilderness thwarted their stout invasion;
But with the ship that sailed again went no retreating soul!
Stubborn, unvanquished, clinging to the skirts of Hope,
They kept their narrow foothold on the land,
And the ship sailed home for more.
With yearlong striving they fought their way into the forest;
Their axes echoed where I sit, a score of miles from the sea.
Slowly, slowly the wilderness yielded
To smiling grass-plots and clearings of yellow corn;
And while the logs of their cabins were still moist
With odorous sap, they set upon the hill
The shrine of liberty for man's mind,
And by it the shrine of liberty for man's soul,
The school-house and the church.
The apple-tree by the wall sheds its blossom about me--
A shower of petals of light upon darkness.
From Nature's brimming cup I drink a thousand scents;
At noon the wizard sun stirs the hot soil under the pines.
I take the top stone of the wall in my hands
And the sun in my heart;
I feel the rippling land extend to right and left,
Bearing up a receptive surface to my uncertain feet;
I clamber up the hill and beyond the grassy sweep;
I encounter a chaos of tumbled rocks.
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