Rutherford McDowell speaks as a photographer who enlarges old portraits of pioneers and sometimes has one of the aging settlers sit for him. He is struck by something in their eyes—a quiet sadness he can’t fully understand. He compares it to a still pool near oak trees in autumn, with leaves falling and a rooster crowing from a farm in the distance, where the descendants now live. That image captures the poem’s mood: peaceful but melancholy, full of loss and distance. The pioneers’ strong, faithful, courageous generation is disappearing. When McDowell photographs their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, he sees faces that are still real but missing the old strength, faith, mastery, and courage. The poem mourns that fading pioneer spirit while still honoring the life that continues under the sun.
Rutherford McDowell — Summary
They brought me ambrotypes Of the old pioneers to enlarge. And sometimes one sat for me— Some one who was in being When giant hands from the womb of the world Tore the republic. What was it in their eyes?— For I could never fathom That mystical pathos of drooped eyelids, And the serene sorrow of their eyes. It was like a pool of water, Amid oak trees at the edge of a forest, Where the leaves fall, As you hear the crow of a cock From a far-off farm house, seen near the hills Where the third generation lives, and the strong men And the strong women are gone and forgotten. And these grand-children and great grand-children Of the pioneers! Truly did my camera record their faces, too, With so much of the old strength gone, And the old faith gone, And the old mastery of life gone, And the old courage gone, Which labors and loves and suffers and sings Under the sun!