Village Green - Woodstock, Vermont

The town common, or village green in Woodstock, Vermont. It is early spring, and the activities held here by the community are for another day. Today, we have it all to ourselves.


If you want to know more about Woodstock, here’s the marker right on the green to fill you in. These are the facts.  I like the one about it being the the site of the first ski-tow in the US, in 1934.

Poet William Blake provides some color commentary in “The Echoing Green”:

The sun does arise,


And make happy the skies.


The merry bells ring


To welcome the spring.


The skylark and thrush,


The birds of the bush,


Sing louder around,


To the bells’ cheerful sound,


While our sports shall be seen


On the echoing green.






Old John with white hair


Does laugh away care,


Sitting under the oak,


Among the old folk.


They laugh at our play,


And soon they all say:


‘Such, such were the joys


When we all, girls and boys,


In our youth-time were seen


On the echoing green.’






Till the little ones weary


No more can be merry;


The sun does descend,


And our sports have an end.


Round the laps of their mother


Many sisters and brothers,


Like birds in their nest,


Are ready for rest;


And sport no more seen


On the darkening green.



William Blake (1757-1827)