PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Here they settled; here they staked their claims

upon the land through seasons in succession:

their faith formed on the well-proven King James;

their church led by the First London Confession.

Their fellowship did not fall to convention,

nor stoop down to comparative pretension.

Here rests one who long plowed a sprawling farm;

by him, his wife and family, safe from harm

(somewhat forgotten now). The old church clerk

(and minor poet), their neighbor, is right there.

The preachers, teachers, craftsmen, bankers share

the shade provided by high, ancient trees,

with glints of rural sunlight when the breeze

dances upon the limbs. These brethren's work

is still apparent in the houses, roads,

the church, the city hall, the platting codes;

the Words of Christ still reverenced in the school;

and all transactions, to the Golden Rule

conformed. That is the spirit of this land.

But few, I fear, there be who understand

the splendor of this local history---

silenced by local, modern, apathy

(and its temptations, multiplied to legion).

But, to these brethren, lines of poetry

I bring, here---where our age's perfidy

cannot dim stars that shine best in this region.

Starward

[*/+/^]