To Templeton and Mount Monadnock

In peace beneath the crystal summer skies,

Behold the spires of Templeton arise;

Among the green and grove-deck’d mead expands,

Whilst vary’d blossoms tint the smiling lands.

Pleas’d with the beauties of the blest domain,

No Goldsmith long could mourn sweet Auburn’s plain;

The rural grade Old England lov’d to view,

Here blooms again, transplanted to the New!

The rip’ning corn along the furrow’d leas

Nods in the sun, and dances in the breeze;

In stately elm and stout-lim’d oak we trace

Th’ enduring glories of New-England’s race.

Can ancient bliss from such a scene depart,

Or dull decadence pain the pensive heart?

Can with’ring change ancestral shades o’er-ride,

And aliens live where study Saxons died?

May fav’ring fate a kindly respite lend,

And keep the vale untainted to the end!

Look to the north where Grand Monadnock’s height

Enchains the fancy, and rewards the sight;

Such rock-ribb’d hills our own New-England gave

To mould her sons as rugged and as brave.

Ancient Monadnock! Silent pine-girt hill,

Whose majesty could move a Whittier’s quill;

Whose distant brow the humbler pen excites;

Whose purpled slope the raptur’d gaze invites;

Stand thou! Great Sentinel, though nations fall –

In thee New-England triumphs over all!

H.P. Lovecraft 1917