The Long Voyage

Not that the pines were darker there,   

nor mid-May dogwood brighter there,   

nor swifts more swift in summer air;

    it was my own country,

having its thunderclap of spring,   

its long midsummer ripening,   

its corn hoar-stiff at harvesting,

    almost like any country,

yet being mine; its face, its speech,   

its hills bent low within my reach,   

its river birch and upland beech

    were mine, of my own country.

Now the dark waters at the bow

fold back, like earth against the plow;   

foam brightens like the dogwood now

    at home, in my own country.

--Malcolm Cowley