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(Excerpt)
BUT what to us are centuries dead, | |
| And rolling years forever fled, | |
| Compared with thee, O grand and fair | |
| Vermont,—our goddess mother? | |
| Strong with the strength of thy verdant hills, | 5 |
| Fresh with the freshness of mountain rills, | |
| Pure as the breath of the fragrant pine, | |
| Glad with the gladness of youth divine, | |
| Serenely thou sittest throned to-day | |
| Where the free winds that round thee play | 10 |
| Rejoice in thy wave of sun-bright hair, | |
| O thou, our glorious mother! | |
| Rejoice in thy beautiful strength and say, | |
| Earth holds not such another! | |
| Thou art not old with thy hundred years, | 15 |
| Nor worn with care, or toil, or tears, | |
| But all the glow of the summer time | |
| Is thine to-day in thy glorious prime! | |
| Thy brow is fair as the winter snows, | |
| With a stately calm in its still repose; | 20 |
| While the breath of the rose the wild bee sips, | |
| Half mad with joy, cannot eclipse | |
| The marvellous sweetness of thy lips; | |
| And the deepest blue of the laughing skies | |
| Hides in the depths of thy fearless eyes, | 25 |
| Gazing afar over land and sea | |
| Wherever thy wandering children be! | |
| Fold on fold, | |
| Over thy form of grandest mould, | |
| Floweth thy robe of forest green, | 30 |
| Now light, now dark, in its emerald sheen. | |
| Its broidered hem is of wild-flowers rare, | |
| With feathery fern-fronds light as air | |
| Fringing its borders. In thy hair | |
| Sprays of the pink arbutus twine, | 35 |
| And the curling rings of the wild grape-vine. | |
| Thy girdle is woven of silver streams; | |
| Its clasp with the opaline lustre gleams | |
| Of a lake asleep in the sunset beams; | |
| And, half concealing | 40 |
| And half revealing, | |
| Floats over all a veil of mist | |
| Pale tinted with rose and amethyst! | |
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