Our River

For a summer festival at The Laurels on the Merrimac.     Once more on yonder laurelled height     The summer flowers have budded;     Once more with summers golden light     The vales of home are flooded;     And once more, by the grace of Him     Of every good the Giver,     We sing upon its wooded rim     The praises of our river,     Its pines above, its waves below,     The west-wind down it blowing,     As fair as when the young Brissot     Beheld it seaward flowing,     And bore its memory oer the deep,     To soothe a martyrs sadness,     And fresco, in his troubled sleep,     His prison-walls with gladness.     We know the world is rich with streams     Renowned in song and story,     Whose music murmurs through our dreams     Of human love and glory     We know that Arnos banks are fair,     And Rhine has castled shadows,     And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr     Go singing down their meadows.     But while, unpictured and unsung     By painter or by poet,     Our river waits the tuneful tongue     And cunning hand to show it,     We only know the fond skies lean     Above it, warm with blessing,     And the sweet soul of our Undine     Awakes to our caressing.     No fickle sun-god holds the flocks     That graze its shores in keeping;     No icy kiss of Dian mocks     The youth beside it sleeping     Our Christian river loveth most     The beautiful and human;     The heathen streams of Naiads boast,     But ours of man and woman.     The miner in his cabin hears     The ripple we are hearing;     It whispers soft to homesick ears     Around the settlers clearing     In Sacramentos vales of corn,     Or Santees bloom of cotton,     Our river by its valley-born     Was never yet forgotten.     The drum rolls loud, the bugle fills     The summer air with clangor;     The war-storm shakes the solid hills     Beneath its tread of anger;     Young eyes that last year smiled in ours     Now point the rifles barrel,     And hands then stained with fruits and flowers     Bear redder stains of quarrel.     But blue skies smile, and flowers bloom on,     And rivers still keep flowing,     The dear God still his rain and sun     On good and ill bestowing.     His pine-trees whisper, Trust and wait!     His flowers are prophesying     That all we dread of change or fate     His love is underlying.     And thou, O Mountain-born! no more     We ask the wise Allotter     Than for the firmness of thy shore,     The calmness of thy water,     The cheerful lights that overlay,     Thy rugged slopes with beauty,     To match our spirits to our day     And make a joy of duty.