ONCE in the leafy prime of Spring, | |
| When blossoms whitened every thorn, | |
| I wandered through the Vale of Orbe | |
| Where Agassiz was born. | |
| |
| The birds in boyhood he had known | 5 |
| Went flitting through the air of May, | |
| And happy songs he loved to hear | |
| Made all the landscape gay. | |
| |
| I saw the streamlet from the hills | |
| Run laughing through the valleys green, | 10 |
| And, as I watched it run, I said, | |
| “This his dear eyes have seen!” | |
| |
| Far cliffs of ice his feet have climbed | |
| That day outspoke of him to me; | |
| The avalanches seemed to sound | 15 |
| The name of Agassiz! | |
| |
| And standing on the mountain crag | |
| Where loosened waters rush and foam, | |
| I felt that, though on Cambridge side, | |
| He made that spot my home. | 20 |
| |
| And looking round me as I mused, | |
| I knew no pang of fear or care, | |
| Or homesick weariness, because | |
| Once Agassiz stood there! | |
| |
| I walked beneath no alien skies, | 25 |
| No foreign heights I came to tread, | |
| For everywhere I looked, I saw | |
| His grand, beloved head. | |
| |
| His smile was stamped on every tree, | |
| The glacier shone to gild his name, | 30 |
| And every image in the lake | |
| Reflected back his fame. | |
| |
| Great keeper of the magic keys | |
| That could unlock the guarded gates | |
| Where Science like a Monarch stands, | 35 |
| And sacred Knowledge waits,— | |
| |
| Thine ashes rest on Auburn’s banks, | |
| Thy memory all the world contains, | |
| For thou couldst bind in human love | |
| All hearts in golden chains! | 40 |
| |
| Thine was the heaven-born spell that sets | |
| Our warm and deep affections free,— | |
| Who knew thee best must love thee best, | |
| And longest mourn for thee! | |
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