Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/138

134 Behold! what beauteous regions spread, Old Greylock shakes his ancient head, And forests nod with solemn sweep, And hamlets through their vistas peep. See Dalton, with her waving crown, Beneath the hills sit graceful down, And Hinsdale twine in meshes strong, The white fleece nursed her folds among, And Stock bridge o'er her marble bent, Prepare the enduring monument, And Becket's rocks whence streamlets flow, And Chester's dells where laurels glow, Whose lustrous leaf and radiant spire, We fain had lingered to admire, Or cull the iris deeply blue, Or water-lily bright with dew, Or rich wild rose, that freely cast Its treasures round us as we past, And seemed to reach its clustering bloom And woo us with a fresh perfume.

But swift our mystic courser went, His dauntless spirit fiercely bent The goal to reach, nor slack his speed The lesson of a flower to heed. On, on he flew, nor paused to lave His hot lip in the cooling wave, The might of thousand steeds that shun The lasso 'neath La Plata's sun,