l'Anse aux Meadows, approaching 2000

How did they fare, a thousand years ago
on the cold northern seas?
What found they, and what drove them here?
Adventure, the unknown?
Or a world's wealth? Wood, fishes,
riches, or fame,
pride, following where a leader goes
to build what they could not maintain?

Now see this coastline, barren and windswept:
How saw they, long ago
who came in square-sailed ship
on swans' bath, fishes' path
over the gannet's road?

So now we wait and watch
and seek to understand
in changed land,
new world, new destiny:
Earth in our hands,
despoilers, in our progress,
blind headlong search for success,
unseeing, the land-gifts
of streaming light, and cold,
and jewel-iced seas;
and deep fir-darkness,
and courage
of those who ventured here
so long ago.

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