Classic Poem

IV.

And not alone thy features fair,
And legend lore and matchless grace,
But noble deeds of courage rare,
Illume, as with a soul, thy face.

The Highlands and the Palisades
Mirror their beauty in the tide;
The history of whose forest shades
A nation reads with conscious pride.

On either side these mountain glens
Lie open like a massive book,
Whose words were graved with iron pens,
And lead into the eternal rock;

Which evermore shall here retain
The anuals time cannot erase;
And while these granite leaves remain,
This crystal ribbon marks the place.

The spot where Kosciusko dreamed —
Fort Putnam's gray and ruined wall;
West Point, where patriot bayonets gleamed —
This open page reveals them all.

From Stony Point to Bemis Height,
From Saratoga to the sea,
We trace the lines, now dark, now bright,
From seventy-six to eighty-three.

We celebrate our hundredth year
With thankful hearts and words of praise,
And learn a lasting lesson here
Of trust and hope for coming days.

V.

And sweet to me this other thought,
And more than fancy to my mind:
These grand divisions, plainly wrought,
In human life a semblance find.

The Adirondacks, childhood's glee;
The Catskills, youth with dreams o'ercast;
The Highlands, manhood bold and free;
The Tappan Zee, age come at last.

O Tappan Zee! with peaceful hills,
And slumbrous sky and drowsy air,
Thy calm and restful spirit stills
The heart weighed down with weary care.

Pocantico's hushed waters glide
Through Sleepy Hollow's haunted ground,
And whisper to the listening tide
The name carved o'er one lowly mound.

Fair mansions rise on every hill,
With turrets crowned, and stately towers,
Which men can buy and sell at will;
But old Van Tassel's home is ours:

A quiet, cosey little nest,
Enshrined and loved for evermore;
Where Geoffrey Crayon came to rest,
When all his wanderings were o'er.

Thrice blest and happy Tappan Zee,
Whose banks along thy glistening tide
Have legend, truth, and poetry
Sweetly expressed in Sunnyside.

VI.

The twilight falls, the picture fades;
My soul has drifted down the stream;
And now, beneath the Palisades,
I wonder, " Is it all a dream? "

Below the cliffs Manhattan's spires
Glint back the sunset's latest beam;
The bay is flecked with twinkling fires;
Or is it but " Van Kortlandt's dream? "

Hark! Freedom's arms ring far and wide;
Again these forts with beacons gleam;
Loud cannon roar on every side —
I start, I wake; I did but dream.

Deep silence 'mid these glorious hills;
Dark shadows on the silver stream;
My very soul with rapture thrills:
" Is't heaven, or earth, or but a dream? "

Nay! true as life, and deep as love,
And real amid the things that seem;
For Earth below and Heaven above
Proclaim " truth stranger than a dream. "