Possessors
THIS mountain is my property alone:
A hard expanse of cocklebur and pines,
A lace of grass subsiding into stone,
And overhead a purple fret of vines.
A hard expanse of cocklebur and pines,
A lace of grass subsiding into stone,
And overhead a purple fret of vines.
These are my woods, and this my personal scene:
Where fallen underfoot the balsam boughs
And partridge feathers pattern each ravine,
And where the hornet plots his paper house.
Where fallen underfoot the balsam boughs
And partridge feathers pattern each ravine,
And where the hornet plots his paper house.
For no man knows this place so well as I;
Not one has seen this roof of branches torn
By sun, or watched the overhanging sky
Scraped by a wing as sharply as a thorn.
Not one has seen this roof of branches torn
By sun, or watched the overhanging sky
Scraped by a wing as sharply as a thorn.
This place is mine, where evening breeds alarm:
A thin disquiet sharpened with despair,
Where dusk approaches like a locust swarm
Spreading its copper rumor down the air.
A thin disquiet sharpened with despair,
Where dusk approaches like a locust swarm
Spreading its copper rumor down the air.
From here I came, and here I must return,
A rightful habitant to claim his own.
As any sharp-eyed creature’s in the fern,
This mountain is my property alone.
A rightful habitant to claim his own.
As any sharp-eyed creature’s in the fern,
This mountain is my property alone.
LIONEL WIGGAM