ONCE more on yonder laurelled height | |
| The summer flowers have budded; | |
| Once more with summer’s golden light | |
| The vales of home are flooded; | |
| And once more, by the grace of Him | 5 |
| Of every good the Giver, | |
| We sing upon its wooded rim | |
| The praises of our river: | |
| |
| Its pines above, its waves below, | |
| The west-wind down it blowing, | 10 |
| As fair as when the young Brissot | |
| Beheld it seaward flowing,— | |
| And bore its memory o’er the deep, | |
| To soothe a martyr’s sadness, | |
| And fresco, in his troubled sleep, | 15 |
| His prison-walls with gladness. | |
| |
| We know the world is rich with streams | |
| Renowned in song and story, | |
| Whose music murmurs through our dreams | |
| Of human love and glory; | 20 |
| We know that Arno’s banks are fair, | |
| And Rhine has castled shadows, | |
| And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr | |
| Go singing down their meadows. | |
| |
| But while, unpictured and unsung | 25 |
| By painter or by poet, | |
| Our river waits the tuneful tongue | |
| And cunning hand to show it,— | |
| We only know the fond skies lean | |
| Above it, warm with blessing, | 30 |
| And the sweet soul of our Undine | |
| Awakes to our caressing. | |
| |
| No fickle sun-god holds the flocks | |
| That graze its shores in keeping; | |
| No icy kiss of Dian mocks | 35 |
| The youth beside it sleeping: | |
| Our Christian river loveth most | |
| The beautiful and human; | |
| The heathen streams of Naiads boast, | |
| But ours of man and woman. | 40 |
| |
| The miner in his cabin hears | |
| The ripple we are hearing; | |
| It whispers soft to homesick ears | |
| Around the settler’s clearing: | |
| In Sacramento’s vales of corn, | 45 |
| Or Santee’s bloom of cotton, | |
| Our river by its valley-born | |
| Was never yet forgotten. | |
| |
| The drum rolls loud,—the bugle fills | |
| The summer air with clangor; | 50 |
| The war-storm shakes the solid hills | |
| Beneath its tread of anger; | |
| Young eyes that last year smiled in ours | |
| Now point the rifle’s barrel, | |
| And hands then stained with fruits and flowers | 55 |
| Bear redder stains of quarrel. | |
| |
| But blue skies smile, and flowers bloom on, | |
| And rivers still keep flowing,— | |
| The dear God still his rain and sun | |
| On good and ill bestowing. | 60 |
| His pine-trees whisper, “Trust and wait!” | |
| His flowers are prophesying | |
| That all we dread of change or fall | |
| His love is underlying. | |
| |
| And thou, O Mountain-born!—no more | 65 |
| We ask the wise Allotter | |
| Than for the firmness of thy shore, | |
| The calmness of thy water, | |
| The cheerful lights that overlay | |
| Thy rugged slopes with beauty, | 70 |
| To match our spirits to our day | |
| And make a joy of duty. | |
| |
