Flaming near the frost
“It takes adversity or coming close
To trouble and hard times to make them glow,
Then they really flower as swamp maples
Flower on the edge of frost and snow.’’
— From “New Englanders Are Maples,’’ by Robert P.T. Coffin (1892-1955), a native and long-time resident of Brunswick, Maine, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet