This poem was contributed by Charles Churchill, who wanted me to share it. (Thanks)

 

OF WALLS AND MEN

Stark monuments to toil, the old stone walls

Convey uncertain words from ancient deeds

And by their very width of rock proclaim

The strength of man’s eternal will to own

What he can never hope to hold for long.

 

Some great grandfather’s younger eyes surveyed

This ponderous fruit of centuries that filled

His farm and he and others bent their backs

To lift, to place in balaqnce for a wall,

These scattered orphans from the glacier’s womb.

 

You come across them deep in pines and oaks,

Mute sentinels that guard forgotten fields.

These solid links of hard necessity

Still seem a barrieir set against the world,

A rural handiwork of ancient gods.