Eric Ewazen - Mist in the Valley

These hills, to hurt me more
That am hurt already enough, —
Having left the sea behind
Having turned suddenly and left the shore
That I had loved beyond all words, even a song's words, to convey

And built me a house on upland acres
Sweet with the pinxter, bright and rough
With the rusty blackbird long before the winter's done
But smelling never of bayberry hot in the sun
Nor ever loud with the pounding of the long white breakers, —

These hills, beneath the October moon
Sit in the valley white with mist
Like islands in a quiet bay

Jut out from shore into the mist
Wooded with poplar dark as pine
Like points of land into a quiet bay

(Just in the way
The harbour met the bay)

Stricken too sore for tears
I stand, remembering the Islands and the sea's lost sound —
Life at its best no longer than the sand-peep's cry
And I two years, two years
Tilling an upland ground!