| |
| SO bright the day, so clear the sky, | |
| So grand the scene before me, | |
| My meaner life my soul puts by, | |
| And a better mood comes o’er me. | |
| |
| From under trees whose rustling leaves | 5 |
| Wear all their autumn glory, | |
| I watch the brown fields far below, | |
| And the headlands, gray and hoary. | |
| |
| I see the beetling Palisades, | |
| Whose wrinkled brows forever, | 10 |
| In calms and storms, in lights and shades, | |
| Keep watch along the river. | |
| |
| Such watch, of old, the Magi kept | |
| Along the sad Euphrates:— | |
| Our eyeless ones have never slept, | 15 |
| And this their solemn fate is: | |
| |
| God built these hills in barrier long, | |
| And then he opened through them | |
| These gates of granite, barred so strong | |
| He only might undo them; | 20 |
| |
| Through them he lets the Hudson flow | |
| For slowly counted ages, | |
| The while the nations fade and grow | |
| Around the granite ledges. | |
| |
| He bids these warders watch and wait, | 25 |
| Their vigil ne’er forsaking, | |
| Forever standing by the gate, | |
| Not moving and not speaking. | |
| |
| So, all earth’s day, till night shall fall, | |
| When God shall send his orders, | 30 |
| And summon at one trumpet-call | |
| The grim and patient warders. | |
| |
| The guards shall bow, the gates shall close | |
| Upon the obedient river, | |
| And then no more the Hudson flows, | 35 |
| Forever and forever. | |
| |
