Our Town

"OUR TOWN"

The town, when you curve down to it from the road,

Is a picture, steeple-white and lilac-green,

The houses pure as if it just had snowed

On the simple Greek perfection of the scene.

Remember Concord, remember Robert Frost,

Remember tombstones scriptured on the graves.

Peace, peace be with you or the soul is lost

Between the engines and the thought that saves.

But peace is finished; it is over now.

The doors are locked, the sails are furled to steam.

The evening pastures echo as the cow-

Bells sounding in a child-remembered dream.

"You can't have back," the dead stand up to say,

"You shouldn't want, the lovely, finished day."