Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/290

 28o CONSOLATIONS OF SOLITUDE

As thou of thine, blue smiling river,

That flowest gayly still as ever.

In vain shall man his hands employ

All thy beauty to destroy ;

Still in the groves thy steps are free ;

He hath not locked thee there ; I see

Thine untamed strength, delighting still

To sweep the vale and cleave the hill,

Where, laughing loud in joyous song,

Thou flashest the green fields along,

Till, in old Concord's battle plain,

Thy gladsome face grows grave again.

There, joined with Sudbury's sluggish tides,

In statelier march thy current glides.

Near that gray column, rude and low,*'

Where Freedom struck her earliest blow,

Thy reverential waters pass

Smooth as a lake of molten glass.

But here, fair stream, I heed thee not ;

Flow on thy course, henceforth forgot.

Soon shalt thou hear amongst the hills

The clattering of a hundred mills,

There fated for some while to be

Tamed to a transient industry,

Trained to the trench to feed the flume.

Twirl the spindle, work the loom.

But tyrants cannot rein thee long ;

Thou dost remember thine old song,

Which first was taught thee by the fountain

That fed thee on her native mountain ;

Not long contented thus to be

Bound to a toilsome slavery.

Sudden thou leapest on the back

Of the mighty Merrimack,

Who bears thee on in laughing glee.

Glad of his new-found company.

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