CAN those Ægean isles upon whose rocks
Gnarled olive climbs in clefts above the sea,
Or where with burry fleece the ageless flocks
Lie with bent knees beneath a shadowing tree,
Can such an isle, so dowered with ancient praise
And long consent of men’s approving eyes,
Be any whit more fair
Than these that throng amid the northern bays
With beaches bright and bare
And spires of spruce up-pointing to the skies
Or slopes of stony turf where cattle crop
Short grass and clover-top?
The isles, the bright isles, crowd upon the bay
In contours low or steep, with woods, or none,
And close companions through the arch of day
Time walks with light poured from a godlike sun.
Broad is the sky, how broad, and flocks of cloud
Stream with mild lustrous fleece across their high
And glittering pastureland.
Wind, waves, and stones mingle their voices loud,
And fields in riot stand
Moved by the flowing currents of the sky
To scatter seeds and petals in wild showers
And tumble all their flowers.
O lovely northern land, can any place
Be fairer than these isles of wind and light?
Yes, others touched with a more lofty grace
Lift meadows shining with preëminent right;
More spacious isles, where corn and cheese and wine
Spared to the gods a measure past men’s need;
Where once the race was glad
In mastered beauty, and men could divine
Great arts, and knowledge clad
In words whose harmony was half their creed.
And where, save where immortal accents ring,
Ought we with love to cling?
Here no hand shapes the marble so that flesh
And thought seem led in union firm and sweet
As by a shepherd’s pipe heard winding fresh
In hills where morning and the day-star meet.
No garland-bearing youths bring meal and fruit
To woodland altars, and upon the hill
No temple pure and clear
As Doric flute-notes quiets their dispute.
Penurious and severe,
The wooden schoolhouse deals its nasal drill,
Or the white steeple tolls above the slope
Remnants of Christian hope.
Yet have not men their councils deep and strict
With the immediate earth? These eyes and hands
Live now, and now our eager thoughts convict
Our sloth and dullness. Here upon the sands
Runs the quick light, as they, the stripped young men,
Ran bright and clean upon the Trojan beach
In races long ago.
The honor of their time comes not again.
But where we wake to know
Earth, light, and joy, and thoughts that slowly reach
Toward mastered beauty, there must ever be
True birth and piety.
And so, though my nativity lies far,
My work elsewhere, these isles with wood and cliff,
The white road rising toward the northern star,
The black-sailed schooner beating slow and stiff,
Fuse with my deepest life. Here I have seen
The solemn oxen drag the sweet-breath’d hay,
Or laboring herons rise
At duskfall from their coves of mirrored green.
Here I have found replies
To longing that cried out for some clear way
Toward love and toward high effort. O happy air,
O land in truth most fair!
THEODORE MORRISON