370 POEMS 
AN AMERICAN STONEHENGE 
Far up on these abandoned mountain farms 
Now drifting back to forest wilds again, 
The long, gray walls extend their clasping arms, 
Pathetic monuments of vanished men. 
Serpents in stone, they wind o’er hill and dell 
*Mid orchards long deserted, fields unshorn, — 
The crumbling fragments resting where they 
fell 
Forgotten, worthless to a race new-born. 
Nearer than stones of storied Saxon name 
These speechless relics to our hearts should 
come, 
No toiler for a priest’s or monarch’s fame, 
This farmer lived and died to shape a home. 
What days of lonely toil he undertook ! 
What years of iron labor! and for what ? 
To yield the chipmunk one more secret nook, 
The gliding snake one more sequestered spot. 
So little time on earth; so much to do; 
Yet all that waste of weary, toil-worn hands! 
Life came and went; the patient task is 
through ; 
The men are gone; the idle structure stands. 
