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| IN a wild, tranquil vale, fringed with forests of green, | |
| Where nature had fashion’d a soft, sylvan scene, | |
| The retreat of the ring-dove, the haunt of the deer, | |
| Passaic in silence roll’d gentle and clear. | |
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| No grandeur of prospect astonish’d the sight, | 5 |
| No abruptness sublime mingled awe with delight; | |
| Here the wild flow’ret blossom’d, the elm proudly waved, | |
| And pure was the current the green bank that laved. | |
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| But the spirit that ruled o’er the thick tangled wood, | |
| And deep in its gloom fix’d his murky abode, | 10 |
| Who loved the wild scene that the whirlwinds deform, | |
| And gloried in thunder, and lightning, and storm; | |
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| All flush’d from the tumult of battle he came, | |
| Where the red men encounter’d the children of flame, | |
| While the noise of the war-whoop still rang in his ears, | 15 |
| And the fresh bleeding scalp as a trophy he bears: | |
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| With a glance of disgust, he the landscape survey’d, | |
| With its fragrant wild flowers, its wide waving shade;— | |
| Where Passaic meanders through margins of green, | |
| So transparent its waters, its surface serene. | 20 |
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| He rived the green hills, the wild woods he laid low; | |
| He taught the pure stream in rough channels to flow; | |
| He rent the rude rock, the steep precipice gave, | |
| And hurl’d down the chasm the thundering wave. | |
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| Countless moons have since roll’d in the long lapse of time— | 25 |
| Cultivation has softened those features sublime; | |
| The axe of the white man has lighten’d the shade, | |
| And dispell’d the deep gloom of the thicketed glade. | |
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| But the stranger still gazes, with wondering eye, | |
| On the rocks rudely torn, and groves mounted on high; | 30 |
| Still loves on the cliff’s dizzy borders to roam, | |
| Where the torrent leaps headlong embosom’d in foam. | |
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