Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PARKER RIVER, by HENRY HENDERSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PARKER RIVER, by                    
First Line: Through broad gleaming meadows of billowy grass
Last Line: In all the bright splendor of purple and gold.
Subject(s): Parker River, Massachusetts


WHERE THE FIRST SETTLERS OF NEWBURY LANDED IN SEPTEMBER, 1634.

THROUGH broad gleaming meadows of billowy grass,
That forms at its outlet a long narrow pass,
The river comes down
By farms whose high tillage gives note to the town,
As sparkling and bright
As it gladdened the sight
Of the fathers who first found its beautiful shore,
And felt here was home, -- they need wander no more.

When the swallows were gathering in flocks for their flight,
As if conscious some foe of their kind were in sight,
They pushed up the stream
In the low level rays of the sun's lingering beam,
That lit all below
With a magical glow,
That brought by resemblance old England to mind,
Whose shores they had left with such heart-ache behind.

The golden-rod waved its bright plumes from the bank,
As if all the sunshine of summer it drank,
And grapes full and fair
Their wild native fragrance flung out on the air;
And asters, and all
The gay flowerets of fall
That lengthen the season's long dreamy delight,
Were crowding the woodside their beauty made bright.

In the soft sunny days of September they came,
When the trees here and there were alight with the flame
That betokens decay
And the passing of summer in glory away;
As if the great Cause
Of Nature's grand laws
Had set his red signet that here should be stayed
The tide of the year in its pomp and parade.

And now, as I stand on this broad open height,
And take in the view with enraptured delight,
I feel as they felt
Who in fervor of soul by these bright waters knelt,
That here I could rest
In the consciousness blest
That Nature has given all heart, hand, or eye
Could crave for contentment that earth can supply; --

The limitless ocean that stretches away
Beyond the bright islets that light up the bay,
The murmurous roar
Of the surf breaking in on the long line of shore,
And rivers that run
Like gold in the sun,
And broad sunny hillsides and bright breezy groves,
And all one instinctively longs for and loves.

Trees bending with fruit touched with tints of the morn,
Fields soft with the late springing verdure unshorn,
And glimpses so fair
Of city and river and sails here and there,
And cottages white
On the beach by the light, --
The picturesque roadside, and vistas that seem
Like openings to fairy-land seen but in dream.

Adieu, gentle river! though long I may wait
Ere here I shall stand at the day's golden gate,
And take in the view
That brings back the past as so old and so new;
Yet memory will still
Haunt this storied old hill
Whence I see as in vision the prospect unrolled
In all the bright splendor of purple and gold.





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