| |
| NOT thoughtless let us enter thy domain; | |
| Well did the tribes of yore, | |
| Who sought the ocean from the distant plain, | |
| Call thee their country’s door. | |
| |
| And as the portals of a saintly pile | 5 |
| The wanderer’s steps delay, | |
| And, while he musing roams the lofty aisle, | |
| Care’s phantoms melt away | |
| |
| In the vast realm where tender memories brood | |
| O’er sacred haunts of time, | 10 |
| That woo his spirit to a nobler mood | |
| And more benignant clime,— | |
| |
| So in the fane of thy majestic hills | |
| We meekly stand elate; | |
| The baffled heart a tranquil rapture fills | 15 |
| Beside thy crystal gate: | |
| |
| For here the incense of the cloistered pines, | |
| Stained windows of the sky, | |
| The frescoed clouds and mountains’ purple shrines, | |
| Proclaim God’s temple nigh. | 20 |
| |
| Through wild ravines thy wayward currents glide, | |
| Round bosky islands play; | |
| Here tufted headlands meet the lucent tide, | |
| There gleams the spacious bay; | |
| |
| Untracked for ages, save when crouching flew, | 25 |
| Through forest-hung defiles, | |
| The dusky savage in his frail canoe, | |
| To seek the thousand isles, | |
| |
| Or rally to the fragrant cedar’s shade | |
| The settler’s crafty foe, | 30 |
| With toilsome march and midnight ambuscade | |
| To lay his dwelling low. | |
| |
| Along the far horizon’s opal wall | |
| The dark blue summits rise, | |
| And o’er them rifts of misty sunshine fall, | 35 |
| Or golden vapor lies. | |
| |
| And over all tradition’s gracious spell | |
| A fond allurement weaves; | |
| Her low refrain the moaning tempest swells, | |
| And thrills the whispering leaves. | 40 |
| |
| To win this virgin land,—a kingly quest,— | |
| Chivalric deeds were wrought; | |
| Long by thy marge and on thy placid breast | |
| The Gaul and Saxon fought. | |
| |
| What cheers of triumph in thy echoes sleep! | 45 |
| What brave blood dyed thy wave! | |
| A grass-grown rampart crowns each rugged steep, | |
| Each isle a hero’s grave. | |
| |
| And gallant squadrons manned for border fray, | |
| That rival standards bore, | 50 |
| Sprung from thy woods and on thy bosom lay,— | |
| Stern warders of the shore. | |
| |
| How changed since he whose name thy waters bear, | |
| The silent hills between, | |
| Led by his swarthy guides to conflict there, | 55 |
| Entranced beheld the scene! | |
| |
| Fleets swiftly ply where lagged the lone bateau, | |
| And quarries trench the gorge; | |
| Where waned the council-fire, now steadfast glow | |
| The pharos and the forge. | 60 |
| |
| On Adirondack’s lake-encircled crest | |
| Old war-paths mark the soil, | |
| Where idly bivouacs the summer guest, | |
| And peaceful miners toil. | |
| |
| Where lurked the wigwam, cultured households throng; | 65 |
| Where rung the panther’s yell | |
| Is heard the low of kine, a blithesome song, | |
| Or chime of village bell. | |
| |
| And when, to subjugate the peopled land, | |
| Invaders crossed the sea, | 70 |
| Rushed from thy meadow-slopes a stalwart band, | |
| To battle for the free. | |
| |
| Nor failed the pristine valor of the race | |
| To guard the nation’s life; | |
| Thy hardy sons met treason face to face, | 75 |
| The foremost in the strife. | |
| |
| When locusts bloom and wild-rose scents the air, | |
| When moonbeams fleck the stream, | |
| And June’s long twilights crimson shadows wear, | |
| Here linger, gaze, and dream! | 80 |
| |
