Classic and Contemporary Poetry
BENNETT'S BRIDGE, by JOSEPH H. NICHOLS First Line: Thou beautiful, romantic dell Last Line: Along my own blue flowing river. Subject(s): Housatonic (river) | ||||||||
THOU beautiful, romantic dell! Thy banks of hemlock highlands swell, Like huge sea billows, o'er the isles Round which the branching river smiles. Look up! how sombre and how vast The shadows those dark mountains cast, Making noon twilight; or look down The giddy depths, so steep and brown, Where claret waters foam and play A tinkling tune, then dance away. Oft, with my oak-leaf basket green, On summer holidays serene, Along your hillsides have I strayed, And on the ground, all scarlet made, Picked in full stems, as low I kneeled, Strawberries, rubies of the field, Coming late home; or in the flood Cooled the warm current of my blood, While swam the house-dog after me, With long red tongue lapt out in glee. 'T is glorious, here, at breaking day, To watch the orient clouds of gray Blush crimson, as the yellow sun Walks up to take his purple throne, And melts to snowy mists the dew That kissed, all night, each blossom's hue, Till, like a tumbling ocean spread, They hide low vale and tall cliff's head, And many a tree's fantastic form Looks like some tossed ship in a storm. How still the scene! yet here war's hum Once echoed wildly from the drum, When waved the lily flower's gay bloom O'er glittering troops with sword and plume, Who, on the clover meadows round, Their white tents pitched, while music's sound, From horn and cymbal, played some strain That oft had charmed the banks of Seine, And village girls came down to dance At evening with the youths of France. Fair was the hour, secluded dell! When last I taught my listening shell Sweet notes of thee. The bright moon shone, As on the shore I mused alone, And frosted rocks, and streams, and tree, With rays that beamed like eyes on me. A silver robe the mountain's hung, A silver song the waters sung, And many a pine was heard to quiver Along my own blue flowing river. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ESSAY ON STONE by HAYDEN CARRUTH TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY; AN ALLEGORY by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE THE LORD SPEAKS by KARLE WILSON BAKER IN MEMORIAM, NINTH OF AB by BEN AVROM PSALM 144 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE |
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