THROUGH broad gleaming meadows of billowy grass, | |
| That forms at its outlet a long narrow pass, | |
| The river comes down | |
| By farms whose high tillage gives note to the town, | |
| As sparkling and bright | 5 |
| As it gladdened the sight | |
| Of the fathers who first found its beautiful shore, | |
| And felt here was home,—they need wander no more. | |
| |
| When the swallows were gathering in flocks for their flight, | |
| As if conscious some foe of their kind were in sight, | 10 |
| They pushed up the stream | |
| In the low level rays of the sun’s lingering beam, | |
| That lit all below | |
| With a magical glow, | |
| That brought by resemblance old England to mind, | 15 |
| Whose shores they had left with such heart-ache behind. | |
| |
| The golden-rod waved its bright plumes from the bank, | |
| As if all the sunshine of summer it drank, | |
| And grapes full and fair | |
| Their wild native fragrance flung out on the air; | 20 |
| And asters, and all | |
| The gay flowerets of fall | |
| That lengthen the season’s long dreamy delight, | |
| Were crowding the woodside their beauty made bright. | |
| |
| In the soft sunny days of September they came, | 25 |
| When the trees here and there were alight with the flame | |
| That betokens decay | |
| And the passing of summer in glory away; | |
| As if the great Cause | |
| Of Nature’s grand laws | 30 |
| Had set his red signet that here should be stayed | |
| The tide of the year in its pomp and parade. | |
| |
| And now, as I stand on this broad open height, | |
| And take in the view with enraptured delight, | |
| I feel as they felt | 35 |
| Who in fervor of soul by these bright waters knelt, | |
| That here I could rest | |
| In the consciousness blest | |
| That Nature has given all heart, hand, or eye | |
| Could crave for contentment that earth can supply;— | 40 |
| |
| The limitless ocean that stretches away | |
| Beyond the bright islets that light up the bay, | |
| The murmurous roar | |
| Of the surf breaking in on the long line of shore, | |
| And rivers that run | 45 |
| Like gold in the sun, | |
| And broad sunny hillsides and bright breezy groves, | |
| And all one instinctively longs for and loves. | |
| |
| Trees bending with fruit touched with tints of the morn, | |
| Fields soft with the late springing verdure unshorn, | 50 |
| And glimpses so fair | |
| Of city and river and sails here and there, | |
| And cottages white | |
| On the beach by the light,— | |
| The picturesque roadside, and vistas that seem | 55 |
| Like openings to fairy-land seen but in dream. * * * * * | |
| Adieu, gentle river! though long I may wait | |
| Ere here I shall stand at the day’s golden gate, | |
| And take in the view | |
| That brings back the past as so old and so new; | 60 |
| Yet memory will still | |
| Haunt this storied old hill | |
| Whence I see as in vision the prospect unrolled | |
| In all the bright splendor of purple and gold. | |
| |
