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| FROM that Ione lake, the sweetest of the chain | |
| That links the mountain to the mighty main, | |
| Fresh from the rock and welling by the tree, | |
| Rushing to meet and dare and breast the sea, | |
| Fair, noble, glorious, river! in thy wave | 5 |
| The sunniest slopes and sweetest pastures lave, | |
| The mountain torrent, with its wintry roar | |
| Springs from its home and leaps upon thy shore;— | |
| The promontories love thee—and for this | |
| Turn their rough cheeks and stay thee for thy kiss. | 10 |
| Stern, at thy source, thy northern Guardians stand, | |
| Rude rulers of the solitary land, | |
| Wild dwellers by thy cold sequester’d springs, | |
| Of earth the feathers and of air the wings; | |
| Their blasts have rock’d thy cradle, and in storm | 15 |
| Cover’d thy couch and swathed in snow thy form— | |
| Yet, bless’d by all the elements that sweep | |
| The clouds above, or the unfathom’d deep, | |
| The purest breezes scent thy blooming hills, | |
| The gentlest dews drop on thy eddying rills, | 20 |
| By the moss’d bank, and by the aged tree, | |
| The silver streamlet smoothest glides to thee, | |
| The young oak greets thee at the waters’ edge, | |
| Wet by the wave, though anchor’d in the ledge. | |
| —’T is there the otter dives, the beaver feeds, | 25 |
| Where pensive osiers dip their willowy weeds, | |
| And there the wild-cat purs amid her brood, | |
| And trains them, in the sylvan solitude, | |
| To watch the squirrel’s leap, or mark the mink | |
| Paddling the water by thy quiet brink;— | 30 |
| Or to out-gaze the grey owl in the dark, | |
| Or hear the young fox practising to bark. | |
| Dark as the frost-nipp’d leaves that strow’d the ground, | |
| The Indian hunter here his shelter found; | |
| Here cut his bow and shaped his arrows true, | 35 |
| Here built his wigwam and his bark canoe, | |
| Spear’d the quick salmon leaping up the fall, | |
| And slew the deer without the rifle ball. | |
| Here his young squaw her cradling tree would choose, | |
| Singing her chant to hush her swart pappoose, | 40 |
| Here stain her quills and string her trinkets rude, | |
| And weave her warrior’s wampum in the wood. | |
| —No more shall they thy welcome waters bless, | |
| No more their forms thy moonlit banks shall press, | |
| No more be heard, from mountain or from grove, | 45 |
| His whoop of slaughter, or her song of love. | |
| Thou didst not shake, thou didst not shrink, when late | |
| The mountain-top shut down its ponderous gate, | |
| Tumbling its tree-grown ruins to thy side, | |
| And avalanche of acres at a slide. | 50 |
| Nor dost thou stay, when winter’s coldest breath | |
| Howls through the woods and sweeps along the heath— | |
| One mighty sigh relieves thy icy breast, | |
| And wakes thee from the calmness of thy rest. | |
| Down sweeps the torrent ice—it may not stay | 55 |
| By rock or bridge, in narrow or in bay— | |
| Swift, swifter to the heaving sea it goes | |
| And leaves thee dimpling in thy sweet repose. | |
| —Yet as the unharm’d swallow skims his way, | |
| And lightly drops his pinions in thy spray, | 60 |
| So the swift sail shall seek thy inland seas, | |
| And swell and whiten in thy purer breeze, | |
| New paddles dip thy waters, and strange oars | |
| Feather thy waves and touch thy noble shores. | |
| Thy noble shores! where the tall steeple shines, | 65 |
| At midday, higher than thy mountain pines, | |
| Where the white schoolhouse with its daily drill | |
| Of sunburnt children, smiles upon the hill, | |
| Where the neat village grows upon the eye, | |
| Deck’d forth in nature’s sweet simplicity— | 70 |
| Where hard-won competence, the farmer’s wealth, | |
| Gains merit honor, and gives labor health, | |
| Where Goldsmith’s self might send his exiled band | |
| To find a new ‘Sweet Auburn’ in our land. | |
| What art can execute or taste devise, | 75 |
| Decks thy fair course and gladdens in thine eyes— | |
| As broader sweep the bendings of thy stream, | |
| To meet the southern sun’s more constant beam. | |
| Here cities rise, and sea-wash’d commerce hails | |
| Thy shores and winds, with all her flapping sails, | 80 |
| From tropic isles, or from the torrid main— | |
| Where grows the grape, or sprouts the sugar-cane— | |
| Or from the haunts, where the striped haddock play, | |
| By each cold northern bank and frozen bay. | |
| Here safe return’d from every stormy sea, | 85 |
| Waves the striped flag, the mantle of the free, | |
| —That star-lit flag, by all the breezes curl’d | |
| Of yon vast deep whose waters grasp the world. | |
| In what Arcadian, what Utopian ground | |
| Are warmer hearts or manlier feelings found, | 90 |
| More hospitable welcome, or more zeal | |
| To make the curious ‘tarrying’ stranger feel | |
| That, next to home, here best may he abide, | |
| To rest and cheer him by the chimney-side; | |
| Drink the hale farmer’s cider, as he hears | 95 |
| From the grey dame the tales of others years. | |
| Cracking his shagbarks, as the aged crone, | |
| Mixing the true and doubtful into one, | |
| Tells how the Indian scalp’d the helpless child | |
| And bore its shrieking mother to the wild, | 100 |
| Butcher’d the father hastening to his home, | |
| Seeking his cottage—finding but his tomb. | |
| How drums and flags and troops were seen on high, | |
| Wheeling and charging in the northern sky, | |
| And that she knew what these wild tokens meant, | 105 |
| When to the Old French War her husband went. | |
| How, by the thunder-blasted tree, was hid | |
| The golden spoils of far famed Robert Kid; | |
| And then the chubby grandchild wants to know | |
| About the ghosts and witches long ago, | 110 |
| That haunted the old swamp. | |
| The clock strikes ten— | |
| The prayer is said, nor unforgotten then | |
| The stranger in their gates. A decent rule | |
| Of Elders in thy puritanic school. | 115 |
| When the fresh morning wakes him from his dream, | |
| And daylight smiles on rock, and slope, and stream, | |
| Are there not glossy curls and sunny eyes, | |
| As brightly lit and bluer than thy skies, | |
| Voices as gentle as an echoed call | 120 |
| And sweeter than the soften’d waterfall | |
| That smiles and dimples in its whispering spray, | |
| Leaping in sportive innocence away:— | |
| And lovely forms, as graceful and as gay | |
| As wild-brier, budding in an April day | 125 |
| —How like the leaves—the fragrant leaves it bears, | |
| Their simple purposes and simple cares. | |
| Stream of my sleeping fathers! when the sound | |
| Of coming war echoed thy hills around, | |
| How did thy sons start forth from every glade, | 130 |
| Snatching the musket where they left the spade. | |
| How did their mothers urge them to the fight, | |
| Their sisters tell them to defend the right,— | |
| How bravely did they stand, how nobly fall, | |
| The earth their coffin and the turf their pall— | 135 |
| How did the aged pastor light his eye, | |
| When, to his flock, he read the purpose high | |
| And stern resolve, whate’er the toil may be, | |
| To pledge life, name, fame, all—for Liberty. | |
| —Cold is the hand that penn’d that glorious page— | 140 |
| Still in the grave the body of that sage | |
| Whose lip of eloquence and heart of zeal, | |
| Made Patriots act and listening statesmen feel— | |
| Brought thy Green Mountains down upon their foes, | |
| And thy white summits melted of their snows, | 145 |
| While every vale to which his voice could come, | |
| Rang with the fife and echoed to the drum. | |
| Bold River! better suited are thy waves | |
| To nurse the laurels clustering round their graves, | |
| Than many a distant stream, that soaks the mud | 150 |
| Where thy brave sons have shed their gallant blood, | |
| And felt, beyond all other mortal pain, | |
| They ne’er should see their happy home again. | |
| Thou had’st a poet once,—and he could tell, | |
| Most tunefully, whate’er to thee befell, | 155 |
| Could fill each pastoral reed upon thy shore— | |
| —But we shall hear his classic lays no more! | |
| He loved thee, but he took his aged way, | |
| By Erie’s shore, and Perry’s glorious day, | |
| To where Detroit looks out amidst the wood, | 160 |
| Remote beside the dreary solitude. | |
| Yet for his brow thy ivy leaf shall spread, | |
| Thy freshest myrtle lift its berried head, | |
| And our gnarl’d Charter-oak put forth a bough, | |
| Whose leaves shall grace thy Trumbull’s honor’d brow. | 165 |
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