Classic Poem

Far oer The bow
Amid the drowsy noon
Souhegan creeping slow
Appeareth soon.

Where gleaming fields of haze
Meet the voyageurs gaze,
And above the heated air
Seems to make a river there.

The pines stand up with pride
By the Souhegan's side,
And the hemlock and the larch
With their triumphal arch
Have accompanied its march
To the sea.

No wind stirs its waves
But the spirits of the braves
Hov'ring o'er
Whose antiquated graves
Its still water laves
On the shore.

But with an Indian's stealthy tread
It goes sleeping in its bed
Without joy or grief
Or the rustle of a leaf
From the Lyndeboro' hills
To the merrimack mills

Without a ripple or a billow
Or the sigh of a willow
Which trails in its stream
The mid current of its dream.

Not a sound is floated o'er
save the mallet on shore
Which echoing on high
Seems a caulking the sky.

experienced river
Hast thou flown for ever?
Souhegan soundeth old
But the half is not told.

What names hast thou borne
In the ages far gone?
When the Xanthus and Meander
Commenced to wander—
Eer the brown bear hunted
On thy forest floor
Or nature had planted
The pines by thy shore.

With a louder din
Did thy current begin
When melted the snow
On the far mountain's brow
And the drops came together
In that rainy weather.