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The Long Voyage

Not that the pines are 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, 1929