Saybrook Point: At the Grave of Lady Alice Fenwick
The Atlantic receives on an average as many as 1500 poems a month. They come as frequently from men as from women, and are evidence of an interest in poetry which never slackens. As an incentive for those writers yet unestablished, we shall from time to time devote a number of pages to the work of young poets.
by E. G. BURROWS
BEAR east beyond conscience, you, Fenwick,
Beyond crying gulls, Lion Gardiner,
Mourn with remorse for the fort
Cursed by her dying not
For the lost north blaze of her eyes.
Beyond crying gulls, Lion Gardiner,
Mourn with remorse for the fort
Cursed by her dying not
For the lost north blaze of her eyes.
Shake out sail, righteous
With pontifical dignity,
You rogues and warriors, leave
Her in her sunwrack hair
To my comfort, her bed of exile.
With pontifical dignity,
You rogues and warriors, leave
Her in her sunwrack hair
To my comfort, her bed of exile.
Fairer than life I make her
The Lady Alice who lies here
Beneath her quilt of spears
Where the salt-blanched forelocks of pine
Give perch to deacon grackles.
The Lady Alice who lies here
Beneath her quilt of spears
Where the salt-blanched forelocks of pine
Give perch to deacon grackles.
Who knows her hard shroud for the death
You left her, land unclaimed
For a king, sod shoveled on a woman,
So she be mine who came
From this same Vinland soil.
You left her, land unclaimed
For a king, sod shoveled on a woman,
So she be mine who came
From this same Vinland soil.
Louder than your dry lip
I speak for the clouds of her hair.
To the gulls with your grief and patents!
Captains have raked and rummed here
Falling to murderous landfall
I speak for the clouds of her hair.
To the gulls with your grief and patents!
Captains have raked and rummed here
Falling to murderous landfall
For ruth of many less fine.
My fathers ten weddings down
They were, mortal with her
In the monuments of the sea.
By their forfeit I claim her mine.
My fathers ten weddings down
They were, mortal with her
In the monuments of the sea.
By their forfeit I claim her mine.
More beautiful than any woman
I make her in her cowl of elms.
Though worms make quarry of us all,
God grant my words warm you, Alice,
Steadfast on this coast, our home.
I make her in her cowl of elms.
Though worms make quarry of us all,
God grant my words warm you, Alice,
Steadfast on this coast, our home.