Two centuries' winter storms have lashed the changing sands of Falmouth's shore, <br />Deep-voiced, the winds, swift winged, wild, have echoed there the ocean's roar. <br />But though the north-east gale unleashed, rage-blind with power, relentless beat, <br />The sturdy light-house sheds its beam on waves churned white beneath the sleet. <br />And still when cold and fear are past, and fields are sweet with spring-time showers, <br />Mystic, the gray age-silent hills breathe out their souls in fair mayflowers. <br />And where the tawny saltmarsh lies beyond the sand dunes' farthest reach, <br />The undulous grass grown russet green, skirts the white crescent of the beach. <br /> <br />Above the tall elms' green-plumed tops, etched against low-hung, gray-hued skies, <br />Straight as the heaven-kissing pine, the home-bound mariner descries <br />The goodly spire of the old first church, reverend, serene, with old-time grace, <br />Symbol and sign of an inner life deep-sealed by time's slow carven trace. <br /> <br />Out of that church in days long gone went a stalwart, true-eyed sturdy band, <br />Sons of the mist and the flying foam, the blood and brawn of the Pilgrim land; <br />Down to the sea where the tall masts rose, where the green-mossed black hulls rose and fell, <br />And the cables strained at the call of the tide, for they knew and heeded its summons well.<br /><br />Katharine Lee Bates<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/two-centuries/
