 | The ghost's entry and other poems |  |
THE OLD WOODMAN'S AXE
IN KENTUCKY
I am the old Woodman's axe. His stalwart arm(The old Backwoodsman Morgan's, his I mean),
A bloodless but a mighty conqueror's,
Has swung me long, and look what we have wrought:
The savage wood, the abode of savage men,
Shrill day and night with roaming beasts of prey,
Has vanished, shadow-like, with all its shade,—
And see, instead, what mighty harvest fields,
Where golden tents of Plenty thickly stand;
What flower-sweet meadows fragrant-breathed with kine,
Or tremulous with bleat of new-dropped lambs;
And, look! yon clustered cottage-roofs and spire!
| The ghost's entry and other poems | |