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Heart of New England

Chapter 2: EAST WIND
By Abbie Farwell Brown
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Poetry

About This Book

A lyric collection that moves through New England’s seasons, landscapes, and local history, blending pastoral description with folklore, legend, and occasional patriotic and religious reflections. Poems evoke shorelines, orchards, pine woods, and village life while honoring Pilgrim ancestry and the fortitude of pioneer women; other pieces imagine fairies, haunted houses, pirate lore, and convent gardens. Varied forms include children’s verses, contemplative nature lyrics, and occasional odes, united by a regionally rooted voice that balances celebration of place with quiet moral and communal meditation.

HEART OF NEW ENGLAND

EAST WIND

I dream of a languorous, tideless shore,
Of azure light in magic caves;
Of heathery hills with summits hoar,
That wade knee-deep in northern waves;
Of rainbow sails like butterflies
That flutter to an Old World quay;
Of where a buried city lies
Beneath the sands of Brittany.
Nay! But my own New England coast,
Pungent with wild rose, pine, and bay;
Brown marsh, white sand, gray rocks that boast
The fiercest surf, the wildest spray!
Ho! For me,
Where the white, white sails go flashing to the sea;
And the sea wind is the east wind, as the sea wind ought to be!
I dream of a castle-covered height;
Of gardens with eternal flowers,
And mossy fountains gleaming white;
Of lemon groves and myrtle bowers;
Of fairy glens and haunted halls,
Where mystery walks to and fro;
Of palaces on gay canals;
Of English green, and Alpenglow.
Nay! But New England’s apple trees,
Her homely houses, square and plain,
The simple gardens loved of bees,
The maple groves, the firs of Maine!
Ho! For me,
Where the spring comes slowly, like a play to see;
And the sea wind is the east wind, as the sea wind ought to be!