| Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891. | | | | The Two Rivers | | By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) |
| | | SLOWLY the hour-hand of the clock moves round; | |
| So slowly that no human eye hath power | |
| To see it move! Slowly in shine or shower | |
| The painted ship above it, homeward bound, | |
| Sails, but seems motionless, as if aground; | 5 |
| Yet both arrive at last; and in his tower | |
| The slumberous watchman wakes and strikes the hour, | |
| A mellow, measured, melancholy sound. | |
| Midnight! the outpost of advancing day! | |
| The frontier town and citadel of night! | 10 |
| The watershed of Time, from which the streams | |
| Of Yesterday and To-morrow take their way, | |
| One to the land of promise and of light, | |
| One to the land of darkness and of dreams! | | | | |
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