Classic Poem

Here , welling upward into light,
Thy cooling waters burst,
Where once the brown deer in his flight
Bent low to slake his thirst.

Here dipped the bird his thankful bill,
In summer's cloudless noons;
The stars thy dim pool mirrored still,
Between the summer moons.

Canonicus beside thy bank
Flung down his hunter spoil,
And here the great-souled Williams drank,
New-landed on thy soil.

Here youth and age and toil and play
Two centuries drank their fill,
And found, for all it gave away,
Thy cup o'erflowing still.

But lost thou liest under heaps
Piled by an ingrate hand,
And now thy sweet name only keeps
Thy memory in the land.