‘Facing a sheer sky’

“Medusa,’’ by Arnold Böcklin, circa 1878

“I had come to the house, in a cave of trees,

Facing a sheer sky.

Everything moved, — a bell hung ready to strike,

Sun and reflection moved wheeled by.’’

— From “Medusa,’’ by Louise Bogan (1897-1970), a native of Livermore Falls, Maine, who became, in 1945, the first woman U.S. poet laureate. She also wrote fiction and criticism, and was the regular poetry reviewer for The New Yorker.

The Jonathan Fairbanks House, in Dedham, Mass., built circa 1641, is the oldest surviving timber-frame house in North America.