Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


NEW ENGLAND LANDSCAPE by DUBOSE HEYWARD

Poet Analysis

First Line: ON A SEPIA GROUND
Last Line: IS SLOWLY UNWINDING ITS SKEIN.
Subject(s): LANDSCAPE; NEW ENGLAND;

On a sepia ground
Shot with orange light,
The pines
In blue-black lines;
And birches, slender,
Diagonal, and white,
Stencil compact designs.
The inevitable wall,
As it leaves the woods,
Breaks to a sprawl
Of separate stones,
Echoing the tones
Of sepia and orange
With high-lights
Of chrome and red,
Until they find a bed
In the splotched lilac
Of the meadow,
Or chill to blue in shadow.
In the valley's cupped palm
Lies a handful of ripening grain.
And, riding the high blue calm
Over Monadnock,
A decorous cloud
Is slowly unwinding its skein.



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