Classic Poem

Mountain meadows is steep and narrow,
Thick with laurel and apple trees,
Berry bushes and rusted harrow,
Sugar maple and honey bees.

Pasture places is poor and scanty,
Rank with rubble and boulder stone—
Timothy by the logging shanty,
Fruit wherever a core were thrown.

Furrows tilts as the hill is tilted.
Mountain meadows is narrow land.
Over the brook the barn is builded,
Only place that a barn could stand.

Dwelling house is as black as pitch is.
Hemlock timbers is always black. . . .
Running water and roaring ditches,
Pine and popple and tamarack.

Mountain meadows is steep and stony,
Mountain waters is cold and strong—
Drawing me to the mortal-lonely
Mountain places where I belong.

Kettle Creek and Hailstone Hollow,
Burdick, Bunnel, and Elk Lick Run,
Cross Forks River and Hungry Hollow,
Windfall Water and Jamison. . . .