And I who gaze On the dark border here, Drawn like a ribbon round the pasture-ways, Embroidered with the glory of the year— What is the wall to me? Has it no beauty more than eyes can see? Lo, I remember how in days of old A grandsire toiled with weariness and pain To dig the clumsy boulders from the mould; Piled them in ordered rows again, Fitting them firm and fast, A monument to last Long after his own harried day was past. He cleared the rocky soil for corn and grain By which his children throve To carry on the race. We live by his life-giving. I see each stone, rough like his granite face— Uncompromising, stern, no slave to love, Dowered with little grace, Grim with the hard, unjoyful task of living; But strong to stand the wrath of storm and time, And bolts that heaven lets fall. Built of a patriot’s prime— How well I love the wall! HAMPTON TOWN The Hampton marshes to the sea Stretch out a colored tapestry; A woven, iridescent gleam, Patterned with many a sea-filled stream, Where dips the heron silently. Above the Hampton meadows soar Wisps of a quaint, forgotten lore, Wild legends of another day, Sea-born and salty, like the spray Flung from the great tusks of the Boar. And as I wander down the street Of Hampton Town with loitering feet, A fragrance breathes from gardens old, Drawn from the centuries of mould, Thyme, bleeding-heart, and bitter-sweet. The ghosts of lovely ladies rise, With terror in their haunted eyes; Witches and redskins, soldiers grim; Pirate and Puritan—oath and hymn— All in a web whose threads I share. The Hampton pines these legends know, And gossip them in whispers low. They spin an eerie charm that twines About the lovely Place of Pines, To blood that throbs from long ago. THE OLD GARDEN I chanced upon the little bowered retreat For the first time, and never shall forget The spell of tangled mystery! The wet Bejeweled leaves like fingers curled to meet My childish hand; the unimagined sweet Of briar, heliotrope, and mignonette; The tang of box, and quainter blossoms set By mazy paths for liliputian feet.