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No Vermonters in Heaven
We were given a lead about a great website,
Log Cabin Chronicles. Published in a log cabin on a
30-acre Quebec homestead six miles from the border at Rock Island, Quebec and Derby Line,
VT, they offer an eclectic menu of features, fiction and poetry, opinion,
photographs and recipes - focusing on northern VT and southern Quebec. During our
visit, we ran across this piece submitted by one of their readers/visitors. After asking
permission, we reproduce it here for your enjoyment.
Anonymous
I dreamed that I went to the City of Gold,
To Heaven, resplendent and fair,
and after I entered that beautiful fold,
That not a Vermonter was there.
"Impossible, sir, for from my own town,
Many sought this delectable place,
And each must be there with a harp or a crown,
And a conqueror's palm and a clean linen gown,
Received thru a merited grace."
The Angel replied: "All Vermonters come here
When first they depart from the earth,
But after a day, or a month, or a year,
They restless and lonesome and homesick appear,
And sigh for the land of their birth.
"They tell of ravines, wild, secluded and deep
And of flower-decked landscapes serene,
Of towering mountains, imposing and steep,
A-down which, the torrents exultingly leap,
Thru forests perennially green."
"They tell of the many and beautiful hills,
Their forests majestic appear,
They tell of its rivers, its lakes, streams and rills,
Where nature, the purest of water distills,
And they soon get dissatisfied here.
We give them the best the Kingdom provides:
They have everything here that they want,
But not a Vermonter in Heaven abides:
A very brief period here he resides,
Then hikes his way back to Vermont."
I found this poem on a card about the size of a
postcard in an old trunk. The initials at the end are: R.D.H. Enjoy,
Chuck Collins, Tilton, NH
**** Please see our updated
information about this poem in our Folklore and
History sections.****
Source: Log
Cabin Chronicles, Jan 2000.
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