'Round and round'

Poet's Seat Tower is a 1912 sandstone observation tower in Greenfield, Mass., named to honor a long tradition of poets being drawn to the spot, in particular, Frederick Goddard Tuckerman. By 1850, Tuckerman, in a journal entry, called it "Poet's Seat."

An earlier wooden tower was erected at the site in 1879. This first structure was built, along with a public drinking fountain and a road accessing the site, under the auspices of The Greenfield Rural Club.

Roll on, sad world! not Mercury or Mars

Could swifter speed, or slower, round the sun,

Than in this year of variance thou hast done

For me. Yet pain, fear, heart-break, woes, and wars

Have natural limit; from his dread eclipse

The swift sun hastens, and the night debars

The day, but to bring in the day more bright;

The flowers renew their odorous fellowships;

The moon runs round and round; the slow earth dips,

True to her poise, and lifts; the planet-stars

Roll and return from circle to ellipse;

The day is dull and soft, the eave-trough drips;

And yet I know the splendor of the light

Will break anon: look! where the gray is white!

“Roll on Sad World,’’ by Frederick Goddard Tuckerman (1821-1873), a poet, lawyer and amateur botanist and astronomer. Born in Boston, he spent his last decades in Greenfield, Mass.

View in 1917 of Greenfield from Poet’s Seat Tower