dots-menu
×

Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  The River Moldava

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Switzerland and Austria: Vol. XVI. 1876–79.

Austria: Moldava, the River

The River Moldava

By James Gates Percival (1795–1856)

(From Slavonia)

BY Muldava trips a rose-lipped maiden,—

She has crowned her hat with summer flowers;

Fresh and dewy as the fabled Hours,

There she trips along, with blossoms laden.

How the valley with her voice is ringing,

Like the evening songster’s, soft and clear!

In her happy eye a sparkling tear;

She a simple Cheskian lay is singing.

O, how strong the love of country glows

In the peasant’s heart, when all is gone,

King and state, his language left alone,

Blooming still, as over graves the rose.

From his bosom pours the stream of song,

Full, in artless melody, along.