Return of the Native

Rock, juniper, and wind,

And a sea gull sitting still –

All these of one mind.

He who finds will

To come home

Will surely find old faith

Made new again,

And lavish welcome.

Old things breaketh

New, when heart and soul

Lose no whit of old refrain;

It is a smiling festival

When rock, juniper, and wind

Are of one mind;

a sea gull signs the bond

Makes what was broken, whole.

Marsden Hartley was born in Lewiston in 1877, and grew up there. Later he lived in New York City where he became one of America’s best-known modernist painters, and also wrote poems and essays. He spent most of his later years working in Maine, and died in Ellsworth in 1943. This poem is reprinted by permission of Yale University.