Lonely and cold and fierce I keep my way,
Scourge of the lands, companioned by the storm,
Tossing to heaven my frontlet, wild and gray,
Mateless, yet conscious ever of a warm
And brooding presence close to mine all day.
What is this alien thing, so near, so far,
Close to my life always, but blending never,—
Hemmed in by walls...
Sweet stream, that winds through yonder glade,
Apt emblem of a virtuous maid,—
Silent and chaste she steals along,
Far from the world’s gay, busy throng;
With gentle yet prevailing force,
Intent upon her destined course;
Graceful and useful all she does,
Blessing and blest where’er she goes;
Pure-bosomed as that watery glass,...
At noon, within the dusty town,
Where the wild river rushes down,
And thunders hoarsely all day long,
I think of thee, my hermit stream,
Low singing in thy summer dream
Thine idle, sweet, old, tranquil song.
Northward, Katahdin’s chasmed pile
Looms through thy low, long, leafy aisle;
Eastward, Olamon’s summit shines;...
Down Time's quaint stream
Without an oar
We are enforced to sail
Our Port a secret
Our Perchance a Gale
What Skipper would
Incur the Risk
What Buccaneer would ride
Without a surety from the Wind
Or schedule of the Tide —
See where the Thames, the purest stream
That wavers to the noon-day beam,
Divides the vale below:
While like a vein of liquid ore
His waves enrich the happy shore,
Still shining as they flow.
Nor yet, my Delia, to the main
Runs the sweet tide without a stain,
...
As some dark stream within a cavern's breast,
Flows murmuring, moaning for the distant sun,
So ere I met thee, murmuring its unrest,
Did my life's current coldly, darkly run.
And as that stream, beneath the sun's full gaze,
Its separate course and life no...
