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(Excerpt)
AGAIN upon my view | |
| Thou com’st in quiet beauty, gentle stream! | |
| Upon thy waves, the clustering foliage through, | |
| Floats the soft summer beam. | |
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| Tall trees above thee bend, | 5 |
| That cast dark shadows on thy swelling breast; | |
| And falls the mellow light in hues that blend, | |
| Soft as the sunset west. | |
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| And massy rocks arise, | |
| To whose gray sides the glossy smilax cleaves, | 10 |
| While in the clefts the fox’s timorous eyes | |
| Peep from the clustering leaves. | |
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| The pendent willows dip | |
| Their long boughs o’er, and in the water lave; | |
| And stoops the modest golden cup, to sip | 15 |
| The brightly flowing wave. | |
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| Thou wind’st through meadows green, | |
| Fringed with tall grass, and graceful bending fern; | |
| And down through glades to join thee, many a stream | |
| Leaps from its mountain urn. * * * * * | 20 |
| In sunnier climes than ours | |
| Glide brighter streams, o’er sands of golden hue, | |
| And course their way beneath o’ershadowing flowers | |
| And skies of fadeless blue. | |
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| Yet still around thy name | 25 |
| A halo lingers, never to decay, | |
| For thou hast seen, of old, young Freedom’s flame, | |
| Beaming with glorious ray. | |
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| And once thy peaceful tide | |
| Was filled with life-blood from bold hearts and brave; | 30 |
| And heroes on thy verdant margin died, | |
| The land they loved, to save. | |
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| These vales, so calm and still, | |
| Once saw the foeman’s charge,—the bayonet’s gleam; | |
| And heard the thunders roll from hill to hill, | 35 |
| From morn till sunset’s beam. | |
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| Yet in thy glorious beauty, now, | |
| Unchanged thou art as when War’s clarion peal | |
| Rang o’er thy waves, and on yon green hill’s brow, | |
| Glittered the serried steel. | 40 |
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| And still thy name shall be | |
| A watchword for the brave of Freedom’s clime, | |
| And every patriot’s heart will turn to thee, | |
| As in the olden time. | |
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