| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | The Pilgrimage | | By Wallace Gould |
| | From “In Maine”
AT Lewiston, I went to the bridge. | |
| I went to the bridge to linger there. | |
| I wanted to look once more at the Androscoggin. | |
| I wanted to watch its plunge between the cities. | |
| As conquering hordes would appear through a breach in the ramparts of a town, | 5 |
| so the Androscoggin appears through a break in the pines at the crest of its falls. | |
| As the conquering hordes would plunge from the ramparts to the streets, | |
| so the river plunges to its lower channel. | |
| It is mighty. | |
| It is august. | 10 |
| |
| Nothing is changed. | |
| There, as ever, are the mills that rise from the waters— | |
| the old brick mills that were there when I was a child, | |
| and that, by the light of the moon, seemed castles of old days. | |
| They are not changed. | 15 |
| There, as ever, at the crest of the falls, are the ancient pines, black, scraggy, that loom against the northern skies. | |
| They are not changed. | |
| |
| Nothing is changed. | |
| The greater falls, | |
| amber and white, | 20 |
| silky, voluptuous, majestic, resplendent, | |
| descend about the enormous boulders, | |
| which, if viewed from the western shores, | |
| form the face of the aged man. | |
| The floods, just now, are mischievous. | 25 |
| On the brow of the aged man | |
| they have placed a slab of ice— | |
| a dunce-cap on the head of a scowling sage. | |
| The sounding tons pour pompously to the lower basin. | |
| From the basin, | 30 |
| scrolls of foam— | |
| amber and white— | |
| sweep down the river. | |
| |
| Nothing is changed. | |
| The western cataract, tortuous, precipitous, vicious, furious, | 35 |
| darts away from the greater falls, | |
| and, like a python striking from above, | |
| lunges through the sluiceway of jagged boulders. | |
| In the lower basin | |
| it thunders wildly. | 40 |
| Writhing, lashing, | |
| the deafening tons— | |
| amber and white— | |
| burst, as ever, into rolling mist that rises higher than houses. | |
| |
| Do the columbines still grow by the western cataract? | 45 |
| They used to cling to the rocks by the lunging waters, | |
| and there they nodded in the spray. | |
| There I used to go for sanctuary. | |
| I craved the holy silence of the din. | | | | |
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