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| THE EARTH, this beautiful summer’s day, | |
| Is in perfect tune with the blue of the sky, | |
| And the fleecy white of the clouds that play | |
| On the wings of the amorous zephyr’s sigh. | |
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| My errant fancy has led me here, | 5 |
| To the highest point of Woonsocket’s crest, | |
| In this sweetest season of the year | |
| When fields and woods are in verdure dressed. | |
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| I left the valley far, far behind, | |
| As ever upward the pathway led, | 10 |
| Past gray stone-walls where the ivy twined, | |
| And the elms a grateful coolness shed; | |
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| Past the farm-house old, ’neath the sycamore, | |
| With its well-curb aged and moss o’ergrown, | |
| And the broad flat stones before the door, | 15 |
| Wearing slow as the years have flown; | |
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| Till at last I have reached the highest peak | |
| And before me the landscape stretches wide, | |
| And eastward or westward the eye may seek | |
| Yet find no bound to restrain its pride. | 20 |
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| Southeastward a line of darker hue | |
| Than the sky that meets it, far away, | |
| Tells that there are dancing the wavelets blue | |
| On the bosom of Narragansett Bay. | |
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| On the left Wachuset, showing dim | 25 |
| Through wreaths of vapor that round it fold, | |
| Crowns with its dome the horizon’s rim, | |
| Like some eastern temple, grand and old. | |
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| While nearer, along the valleys green, | |
| Full many a village meets the eye, | 30 |
| And here and there the silver sheen | |
| Of a brooklet mirrors the arching sky. | |
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| What pleasure it is to linger here, | |
| Through the summer hours so warm and bright, | |
| Watching the landscape, far and near, | 35 |
| Framed in the sunshine golden light! * * * * * | |
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