Classic Poem

At morn I hear the robin sing
As once he sang in childhood's days;
No sterile seas now meet my gaze,
But budding earth in early spring.

At night I see, in golden car,
Fair Venus hastening to her rest;
No longer seeks she Neptune's breast,
Yon forest 'tis which lures the star.

Home once again! With stick in hand
I tread the path across the fields —
The long brown path. What travel yields
Delight like this? To walk — to stand

In old familiar spots; to feel
This grass beneath my feet; to breathe
This air again! Back, waves which seethe;
I'll off no more on roving keel!


Over me bends my native sky,
Like mother o'er her long-lost child;
Round me, in place of billows wild,
The fragrant clover-meadows lie.

How pleasant, after restless years
Of travel, danger, sickness, strife,
Once more to taste this peaceful life,
Where earth her kindliest aspect wears.

The medley of the birds at dawn,
The crowing of the barn-yard cocks,
The voices of the herds and flocks,
The doves' soft cooing on the lawn,

The thousand rural sounds which form
The song of nature in our clime,
Allure me like a siren's rhyme
After the battle or the storm.


Before me runs the foot-path brown,
The dark-green hemlocks o'er me bend,
As through the woods my way I wend,
Far from the clamor of the town.

How sweet to wander thus at will
The labyrinth of the forest wild!
What hoary rocks are round me piled!
The aromatic air how still!

The squirrel runs from tree to tree,
Along the intertwining limbs,
The thrush pours forth his vesper hymns,
And sunset through the woods I see.

Sunset on Wissahickon's hills!
Let me the beauteous sight behold!
Each leafy height is bathed in gold,
Gold vapor all the valley fills!


Descend to where the smooth road winds
Beside the ever-winding stream;
Methinks the landscape-painter's dream
Here, surely, its fulfillment finds!

Here sylvan shadows sleep or flit,
Here bends a sky of blue divine,
Here waters, hills, and woods combine
To form a picture exquisite.

And as in this romantic spot
I halt, and for a moment rest,
Gazing upon the golden West,
I think of days which now are not.

My boyhood's haunt! To yon clear stream
How often, in summer, have I come,
And in those cooling waters swum
Where now the lights of sunset gleam!