Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AUTUMN ON THE UMPQUA, by WILLIAM STEWARD GORDON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AUTUMN ON THE UMPQUA, by                    
First Line: The sun is peeking o'er the edge
Last Line: When autumn comes in oregon!
Subject(s): Islands; Oregon; West (u.s.); Southwest; Pacific States


The sun is peeking o'er the edge
Of yonder blue and bristling ledge,
And flinging o'er the vagrant night
An aureole of golden light
That crowns a ridge of regal firs,
Whose plumes the morning zephyr stirs.

The wind is like a wounded dove,
Still sobbing soft her deathless love—
So come with me and we will ride
The lordly Umpqua's flowing tide,
For none e'er dreamed a grander dawn
Than greets the hills of Oregon.

And none e'er dreamed a sweeter maid
Than blends her charm with sheen and shade,
The while her western spell she weaves
With scent of wild vanilla leaves—
Did e'er the Danube or the Don
Bear fairer girls than Oregon?

The skulking river seems to hide
Where black basaltic bluffs divide;
Weird Echo Island takes our shout
And sends it bounding all about,
While royal salmon sport and spring,
Their golden armor glistening.

We see old Bruin grunt and sniff
And shuffle off behind a cliff;
While by yon laurel's ruddy base,
Unconscious of her sylvan grace,
A doe is feeding with her fawn—
And this is life in Oregon!

Now hark old Neptune's rising roar,
And mark the maples on the shore—
Did not some Turner from the skies
Here lavish all his mystic dyes
To paint a cosmic masterpiece
To grace a paradisan Greece?

Smooth as yon coots upon the keel,
Our launch glides onward, as we feel
The charm where coast and country kiss
In one enchanted land of bliss—
Then know that life is scarce begun
Until you've lived in Oregon.

Talk not of "melancholy days,"
Of "naked woods" and "icy ways,"
And "dark forebodings of the snow";
Let old October come and go,
For Spring and Summer blend in one
When Autumn comes in Oregon!





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