‘Through deep impartial woods’

Remains of stone walls in Exeter, R.I.

— Photo by JERRYE & ROY KLOTZ, M.D.

“What is it for, now that dividing neither

Farm from farm nor field from field it runs

Through deep impartial woods, and is transgressed

By boughs of pine or beech from either side?”

— From “A Wall in the Woods: Cummington,’’ by American poet Richard Wilbur (1921-2017)

It’s highly unusual in the U.S. for a government seal to feature a literary figure. Cummington honors its native son William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), a romantic poet, journalist and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post.

William Cullen Bryant Homestead, in Cummington, part of the Massachusetts park system.

William Cullen Bryant Memorial in Bryant Park, Manhattan, next to the New York Public Library’s main building.

'Joy's trick'

“Joy’s trick is to supply

Dry lips with what can cool and slake,

Leaving them dumbstruck also with an ache

Nothing can satisfy.’’

— From “Hamlen Brook,’’ by Richard Wilbur (1921-2017), famed American poet who spent most of his life in New England. Hamlen Brook runs through the Wilbur property in the western Massachusetts “Hill Town” of Cummington.