Classic Poem

 Is there a man who loves a marvelous tale—
  Some dreamy legend of enchanted lands,
 As loves old Tantivy October ale,
  Or I our river and its silvery sands?
 Lend such attention as that tale demands.
  The efforts of the muse less notice claim;
 The faltering chords bespeak her awkward hands.
  Wrapped in her homely robe, with progress lame,
She slowly takes the path which others run to fame.

 Let learned muses wander, for a theme,
  In Orient lands and fields of classic lore;
 Mine draws her subject from her native stream,
  And strikes her harp upon its pleasant shore.
 In artful plumage neither will she soar
  To taste the spring which Helicon distils;
 Dearer to her the vine-clad cottage door,
  Whose threshold-seat the evening minstrel fills,
And hears his echoed strains among the neighboring hills.

 And thou, Connecticut, whose waters first
  Baptised thy minstrel a New England born!
 Purest of streams! yea, pure as those that burst
  From the sweet well-springs of the realms of morn
 And fab'lous Fancy's flowery meads adorn.
  I think on those, when musing o'er thy flow,
 Who wrought in boyhood in thy fields of corn;
  Some, distant far, pursuing Fortune go;
Some, in a sailor's grave, sleep Ocean's waves below.

 Say, has the rover from thy shores so free
  Found realms thine own in beauty to outvie?
 Did not thy dying ‘wanderer of the sea,’
  He who with noble firmness e'en could die,
 Recall thy scenes with memory's vivid eye,
  And sigh to think he'd view them never more!
 Roll seaward, waters, where his ashes lie
  Whose memory consecrates for me thy shore;
And blend your lays with mine your noblest to deplore!