| |
| GUARDED by circling streams and wooded mountains, | |
| Like sentinels round a queen, | |
| Dotted with groves and musical with fountains, | |
| The city lies serene. | |
| |
| Not far away the Atlantic tide diverges, | 5 |
| And, up the southern shore | |
| Of gray New England, rolls in shortened surges, | |
| That murmur evermore. | |
| |
| The fairy city! not for frowning castle | |
| Do I extol her name, | 10 |
| Not for the gardens and the domes palatial | |
| Of oriental fame; | |
| |
| Yet if there be one man who will not rally, | |
| One man, who sayeth not | |
| That of all cities in the Eastern valley | 15 |
| Ours is the fairest spot; | |
| |
| Then let him roam beneath those elms gigantic, | |
| Or idly wander where | |
| Shetucket flows meandering, where Yantic | |
| Leaps through the cloven air; | 20 |
| |
| Gleaming from rock to rock with sunlit motion, | |
| Then slumbering in the cove; | |
| So sinks the soul, from Passion’s wild devotion, | |
| To the deep calm of Love. | |
| |
| And journey with me to the village olden, | 25 |
| Among whose devious ways | |
| Are mossy mansions, rich with legends golden | |
| Of early forest days; | |
| |
| Elysian time! when, by the rippling water, | |
| Or in the woodland groves, | 30 |
| The Indian warrior and the Sachem’s daughter | |
| Whispered their artless loves; | |
| |
| Legends of fords, where Uncas made his transit, | |
| Fierce for the border war, | |
| And drove all day the alien Narragansett | 35 |
| Back to his haunts afar; | |
| |
| Tales of the after-time, when scant and humble | |
| Grew the Mohegan band, | |
| And Tracy, Griswold, Huntington, and Trumbull | |
| Were judges in the land. | 40 |
| |
| So let the caviller feast on old tradition, | |
| And then at sunset climb | |
| Up yon green hill, where on his broadened vision | |
| May burst the view sublime! | |
| |
| The city spires, with stately power impelling | 45 |
| The soul to look above, | |
| And peaceful homes, in many a rural dwelling, | |
| Lit up with flames of love;— | |
| |
| And then confess, nor longer idly dally, | |
| While sinks the lingering sun, | 50 |
| That of all cities in the Eastern valley | |
| Ours is the fairest one. * * * * * | |
| |
