Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79. | | | | Leven, the River | | To Leven Water | | James Cochrane |
| | On a Railway Being Made on Its Banks
HAIL, gentle stream! They tell me thou art changed, | |
| That on thy banks no eglantine is seen, | |
| Nor rural song of shepherd heard at e’en, | |
| As when, a boy, thy tangled groves I ranged. | |
| Affection knows no change, and will not know, | 5 |
| In her loved object; she who day by day | |
| Sits by the couch of sickness, sees not grow | |
| Fainter and still more faint the pulse’s play; | |
| Mistakes for coming health the hectic glow, | |
| Till naught is left but the cold, lifeless clay: | 10 |
| Even so before my eyes, year after year, | |
| Inroads were made upon thy rural fame, | |
| But I ne’er saw them till the crisis came, | |
| And then the change, alas! was all too clear. | | | | |
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