Robin Hood Cove--Georgetown, Maine
(by Marsden Hartley, 1940, p. 273 of Collected Poems) 

When evening comes to its gentle arias
along the dusky cove,
and the blue heron flies like a slow arrow
along the selvages of the cove,
as if to give its signal for fine music,
and the little birds who have been so warm
all day have gone in among the pine-spills
for their tithe of rest--
the white bridge joining bank to bank of the tidal river
takes the hushed tones of evening to it ingratiatingly;
the gulls having nothing more to say
to each other--fold wings as pure hands are
folded for a silent thought.
I stand with them all in high salute,
saying to myself: "thanks--well done--beautiful things--
I receive my width of grace from you
and am put to rest with evening singing."


(originally in Androscoggin, published by Falmouth Publishing House, Portland, Maine, a small press devoted primarily to Maine authors)

Marsden Hartley, Robin Hood Cove, Georgetown, Maine. 1938. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York