Across the Border

By Sophie Jewett 1861–1909 Sophie Jewett

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.

Source: The Poems of Sophie Jewett (1910)

Biography

Born in Moravia, New York, poet Sophie Jewett was the daughter of a country doctor. Her childhood was marked by loss and displacement. When she was seven years old, her mother died, and Jewett was summoned from sleep to observe her passing; her father died two years later. After his death, Jewett and her three siblings moved to Buffalo to live with their uncle and grandmother, both of whom died during Jewett’s adolescence.

Jewett . . .

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