| |
| I SAT me down upon a green bank-side, | |
| Skirting the smooth edge of a gentle river, | |
| Whose waters seem’d unwillingly to glide, | |
| Like parting friends, who linger while they sever; | |
| Enforced to go, yet seeming still unready, | 5 |
| Backward they wind their way in many a wistful eddy. | |
| |
| Grey o’er my head the yellow-vested willow | |
| Ruffled its hoary top in the fresh breezes, | |
| Glancing in light, like spray on a green billow, | |
| Or the fine frostwork which young winter freezes; | 10 |
| When first his power in infant pastime trying, | |
| Congeals sad autumn’s tears on the dead branches lying. | |
| |
| From rocks around hung the loose ivy dangling, | |
| And in the clefts sumach of liveliest green, | |
| Bright ising-stars the little beach was spangling, | 15 |
| The gold-cup sorrel from his gauzy screen | |
| Shone like a fairy crown, enchased and beaded, | |
| Left on some morn, when light flash’d in their eyes unheeded. | |
| |
| The humbird shook his sun-touch’d wings around, | |
| The bluefinch caroll’d in the still retreat; | 20 |
| The antic squirrel caper’d on the ground | |
| Where lichens made a carpet for his feet; | |
| Through the transparent waves, the ruddy minkle | |
| Shot up in glimmering sparks his red fin’s tiny twinkle. | |
| |
| There were dark cedars, with loose, mossy tresses, | 25 |
| White-powder’d dog-trees, and stiff hollies flaunting | |
| Gaudy as rustics in their May-day dresses, | |
| Blue pelloret from purple leaves upslanting | |
| A modest gaze, like eyes of a young maiden | |
| Shining beneath dropp’d lids the evening of her wedding. | 30 |
| |
| The breeze fresh springing from the lips of morn, | |
| Kissing the leaves, and sighing so to lose ’em, | |
| The winding of the merry locust’s horn, | |
| The glad spring gushing from the rock’s bare bosom: | |
| Sweet sights, sweet sounds, all sights, all sounds excelling, | 35 |
| O! ’twas a ravishing spot, form’d for a poet’s dwelling. | |
| |
| And did I leave thy loveliness, to stand | |
| Again in the dull world of earthly blindness? | |
| Pain’d with the pressure of unfriendly hands, | |
| Sick of smooth looks, agued with icy kindness? | 40 |
| Left I for this thy shades, where none intrude, | |
| To prison wandering thought and mar sweet solitude? | |
| |
| Yet I will look upon thy face again, | |
| My own romantic Bronx, and it will be | |
| A face more pleasant than the face of men. | 45 |
| Thy waves are old companions, I shall see | |
| A well-remember’d form in each old tree, | |
| And hear a voice long loved in thy wild minstrelsy. | |
| |
