"Across the Border" by Sophie Jewett

 

Across the Border

I have read somewhere that the birds of fairyland

are white as snow.—W. B. Yeats

 

Where all the trees bear golden flowers,

And all the birds are white;

Where fairy folk in dancing hours

Burn stars for candlelight;

 

Where every wind and leaf can talk,

But no man understand

Save one whose child-feet chanced to walk

Green paths of fairyland;

 

I followed two swift silver wings;

I stalked a roving song;

I startled shining, silent things;

I wandered all day long.

 

But when it seemed the shadowy hours

Whispered of soft-foot night,

I crept home to sweet common flowers,

Brown birds, and candlelight.

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

Poem Video👇

https://youtu.be/ci0G_6gTDhU

Who wrote the poem "Across the border"?

Sophie Jewett (June 3, 1861 – October 11, 1909)

Sophie Jewett, also known as the pseudonym Ellen Burroughs, was an American poet, translator, and professor at Wellesley College. The poet’s early life was marked by loss and displacement. When she was 7, she was called from sleep to observe her mother’s passing. Two years later, her father, a country doctor, died. Jewett and her 3 siblings were raised by their uncle and their grandmother, both of whom died during her adolescence. Jewett initially published poetry under the pseudonym Ellen Burroughs which was borrowed from her mother’s name, Ellen Ransom Burroughs Jewett. An American poet Richard Watson Gilder called her a true poet with a golden gift.

"Across the Border" Explanation

In the poem, the poet introduces two worlds, separated at the border. An epigraph, a quote from W.B. Yeats, opens the poem, serving as the key to one of the two worlds. She then describes this imaginary fairyland. This “fairyland,” where all the magical things can be real, symbolizes an ideal life or a lifelong goal for every person. The poem ends with the speaker going back to her reality and home. It symbolizes the disappointment after realizing a chasm between hope and reality. But the speaker learns to appreciate for her mundane reality (“I crept home to sweet common flowers”) despite not being able to find “fairyland.” The poem talks about a gap between fantasy and reality and inspires us to overcome the disappointment and still be optimistic about the future.