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(Excerpt)
LOSE not a memory of the glorious scenes, | |
| Mountains, and palisades, and leaning rocks, | |
| Steep white-walled towns and ships that lie beneath, | |
| By which, like some serene, heroic soul | |
| Revolving noble thoughts, thou calmly cam’st, | 5 |
| O mighty river of the North! Thy lip | |
| Meets Ocean here, and in deep joy he lifts | |
| His great white brow, and gives his stormy voice | |
| A milder tone, and murmurs pleasantly | |
| To every shore, and bids the insolent blast | 10 |
| To touch thee very gently; for thy banks | |
| Held empires broad and populous as the leaves | |
| That rustle o’er their grave,—republics gone | |
| Long, long ago, before the pale men came, | |
| Like clouds into the dim and dusty past: | 15 |
| But there is dearer reason; for the rills | |
| That feed thee, rise among the storied rocks | |
| Where Freedom built her battle-tower; and blow | |
| Their flutes of silver by the poor man’s door; | |
| And innocent childhood in the ripple dips | 20 |
| Its rosy feet; and from the round blue sky | |
| That circles all, smiles out a certain Godhead. | |
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| O lordly river! thou shalt henceforth be | |
| A wanderer of the deep; and thou shalt hear | |
| The sad, wild voices of the solemn North | 25 |
| Utter uncertain words in cloudy rhythm, | |
| But full of terrible meaning, to the wave | |
| That moans by Labrador; and thou shalt pause | |
| To pay thy worship in the coral temples, | |
| The ancient Meccas of the reverent sea; | 30 |
| And thou shalt start again on thy blue path | |
| To kiss the southern isles; and thou shalt know | |
| What beauty thrones the blue Symplegades, | |
| What glory the long Dardanelles; and France | |
| Shall listen to thy calm, deep voice, and learn | 35 |
| That Freedom must be calm if she would fix | |
| Her mountain moveless in a heaving world; | |
| And Greece shall hear thee chant by Marathon, | |
| And Italy shall feel thy breathing on her shores, | |
| Where Liberty once more takes up her lance; | 40 |
| And when thou hurriest back, full of high themes, | |
| Great Albion shall joy through every cliff, | |
| And lordly hall, and peasant-home, and old | |
| Cathedral where earth’s emperors sleep,—whose crowns | |
| Were laurel and whose sceptres pen and harp,— | 45 |
| The mother of our race shall joy to hear | |
| Thy low, sweet murmuring: her sonorous tongue | |
| Is thine, her glory thine; for thou dost bear | |
| On thy rejoicing tide, rejoicing at the task, | |
| The manly Saxon sprung from her own loins | 50 |
In far America.
Roll on! roll on, | |
| Thou river of the North! Tell thou to all | |
| The isles, tell thou to all the continents | |
| The grandeur of my land. Speak of its vales | |
| Where Independence wears a pastoral wreath | 55 |
| Amid the holy quiet of his flock; | |
| And of its mountains with their cloudy beards | |
| Tossed by the breath of centuries; and speak | |
| Of its tall cataracts that roll their bass | |
| Among the choral of its midnight storms, | 60 |
| And of its rivers lingering through the plains, | |
| So long, that they seem made to measure Time; | |
| And of its lakes that mock the haughty sea; | |
| And of its caves where banished gods might find | |
| Night large enough to hide their crownless heads; | 65 |
| And of its sunsets, glorious and broad | |
| Above the prairies spread like oceans on | |
| And on, and on over the far dim leagues, | |
| Till vision shudders o’er immensity. | |
| Roll on! roll on, thou river of the North! | 70 |
| Bear on thy wave the music of the crash | |
| That tells a forest’s fall, wide woods that hold | |
| Beneath their cloistered bark a registry | |
| Where Time may almost find how old he is. | |
| Keep in thy memory the frequent homes, | 75 |
| That from the ruin rise, the triumphs these | |
| Of real kings whose conquering march shines up | |
| Into the wondering Oregon. * * * * * | |
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