MONADNOCK looms against the pale blue dome Of sky, a monarch crowned with cloud and sun; Massive the moods of this rock-ribbed one In ways of God that seemeth most at home; An archetypal art those contours made, An elemental brush the colors laid. Type of New England, creature of her womb, Rugged yet beautiful, thy fearless front Preaches old freedom, and her sturdy wont And purity and faith and living-room; Fore-elder, thou, of simpler, saner days When God meant prayer and Fatherland meant praise. So Emerson, whose laud was made to thee In words of bardic wonder, was a peak Sprung from the same dear soil, and fain to speak Faced skyward toward the heavens' clarity; The same New England gave him goodly birth, The same large mood, the same untired earth. Anak of hills that take the questing eye, Great dominant thing in all this landscape wide, 'Twas meet that thou shouldst thus be magnified By him, that strength to strength should make reply: Monadnock, moveless, whatsoe'er the wind, Like Emerson midst shifts of humankind. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SEALS IN PENOBSCOT BAY by KAREN SWENSON GOD'S YOUTH by LOUIS UNTERMEYER BEFORE MARCHING, AND AFTER (IN MEMORIAM F.W.G.) by THOMAS HARDY IN A GARRET by ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN DON'T YOU SEE? by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE PLACE OF LOVE by S. C. BRACKETT |