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(From Centennial Poem)
A HUNDRED times the Summer’s fragrant blooms | |
| Have laden all the air with sweet perfumes,— | |
| A hundred times along the mountain-side | |
| Autumn has flung his crimson banners wide,— | |
| A hundred times has kindly Winter spread | 5 |
| His snowy mantle o’er the violet’s bed,— | |
| A hundred times has Earth rejoiced to hear | |
| The Spring’s light footsteps in the forest sere, | |
| Since on yon grassy knoll the quick, sharp stroke | |
| Of the young woodman’s axe the silence broke. | 10 |
| Not then did these encircling hills look down | |
| On quaint old farmhouse or on steepled town. | |
| No church-spires pointed to the arching skies; | |
| No wandering lovers saw the moon arise; | |
| No childish laughter mingled with the song | 15 |
| Of the fair Otter, as it flowed along | |
| As brightly then as now. Ah! little recked | |
| The joyous river, when the sunshine flecked | |
| Its dancing wavelets, that no human eye | |
| Gave it glad welcome as it frolicked by! | 20 |
| The long, uncounted years had come and flown, | |
| And it had still swept on, unseen, unknown, | |
| Biding its time. No minstrel sang its praise, | |
| No poet named it in immortal lays. | |
| It played no part in legendary lore, | 25 |
| And young Romance knew not its winding shore. * * * * * | |
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