Classic Poem

Dark rolling current, whose impatient course,
Bending through yellow fields of ripened grain,
Tends downward, till the bubbles of thy source
Ride on the tumult of the heaving main, —

As thus thou rollest on, exulting stream,
To join thy rapid parent, fierce and wide, —
Like the wild thoughts of an unquiet dream,
I send my fancies down thy restless tide.

O Sun, that lingerest in the liquid west,
Stamp with the gold of thine illustrious beams
What, on this wave caressing and carest,
I write to her the mistress of my dreams:

Say I am not alone, — for round about
Are flying chariot-clouds like spirit cars, —
That twilight birds are on their airy route,
And the high heaven is full of glorious stars:

Say I am not alone, — the ancient hills
Give utterance deep to many-voiced lays,
And air-built nests are gushing out, like rills,
With carolled songs of comfort and of praise.

Say it, oh gently, river, as you flow,
Though my heart bounds in this ennobling stir,
Yet affluent Nature seems a fabled show,
Unreal as a vision, without her.