Heart of New England

Chapter 37: SAFE?

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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.

SAFE?

If I but set my casement high
Where none peer in at me,
I shall look only at the sky
And the fair top of the tree.

I shall forget the sorry things
The swallows do not tell;
I shall not see the wounded wings
Of the little bird that fell.

And if below there crawls a road,
Where dusty travelers go,
Groaning beneath a weary load—
Why, I shall never know.

I can pretend there is no sin,
No pain and misery,
If I gaze out where none look in
To read the heart of me.