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| THE ROAR of Niagara dies away, | |
| The fever heats of war and traffic fade, | |
| While the soft twilight melts the glare of day | |
| In this new Helicon, the Muses’ glade. | |
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| The roof that shelter’d Washington’s retreat, | 5 |
| Thy home of homes, America, I find | |
| In this memorial mansion, where we greet | |
| The full-ton’d lyrist, with the gentle mind. | |
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| Here have thy chosen spirits met and flower’d, | |
| Season on season, ’neath magnetic spells | 10 |
| Of him who, in his refuge, rose-embower’d, | |
| Remote from touch of envious passion dwells. | |
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| Here Concord’s sage and Harvard’s wit contend: | |
| The wise, the true, the learned of the land, | |
| Grave thoughts, gay fantasies together blend | 15 |
| In subtle converse, ’neath his fostering hand. | |
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| With other forms than those of mortal guest | |
| The house is haunted; visions of the morn, | |
| Voices of night that soothe the soul to rest, | |
| Attend the shapes, by aery wand reborn; | 20 |
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| Serene companions of a vanish’d age, | |
| Noiseless they tread the once familiar floors; | |
| Or, later offspring of the poet’s page, | |
| They throng the threshold, crowd the corridors. | |
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| “Sweet Preciosa” beside the listening stair | 25 |
| Flutters expectant while Victorian sings; | |
| Evangeline, with cloistral eyes of prayer, | |
| Folds her white hands, in shade of angels’ wings. | |
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| Conquistadors of Castile pace the hall; | |
| Or red-skinn’d warriors pass the challenge round; | 30 |
| Or Minnehaha’s laughter, as the fall | |
| Of woodland waters, makes a silver sound. | |
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| Thor rolls the thunders of his fiery vaunt, | |
| The answering battle burns in Olaf’s eyes; | |
| Or love-crown’d Elsie lures us with the chaunt | 35 |
| That lull’d the waves, ’neath star-hung Genoan skies. | |
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| Here grim-faced captains of colonial days | |
| Salute the builders of old German rhyme; | |
| And choral troops of children hymn the praise | |
| Of their own master minstrel of all time. | 40 |
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| Fair shrine of pure creations! linger long | |
| His bright example, may his fame increase: | |
| Discord nor distance ever dim his song, | |
| Whose ways are pleasantness, whose paths are peace. | |
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| Nor Hawthorne’s manse, wïth ancient moss bespread, | 45 |
| Nor Irving’s hollow, is with rest so rife | |
| As this calm haven, where the leaves are shed | |
| Round Indian summers of a golden life. | |
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