Classic Poem

Yet if those high and echoing shores thee please not,
Seek again the tranquil river's bank.
July evokes new splendor o'er the stream,
In dulcet figures and diviner forms.
Yet more than all the Water-lily's pomp,
That star of creamy perfume, born to be
Consoler of thy solitary hours.
In vast profusion from the store of pads,
They floating rise, with their fine beauty decked,
The habitation of an insect host,
That here pursue and steal the core away.
Nor slight the Pickerel-weed, whose violet shaft
Completes the tall reed's beauty and endows
With a contrasted harmony, the shore.
No work of human art could faintly toll,
Much less repeat in words or colors, all
The unnoticed lustre of these summer plants,
The floating palaces of anchored orbs,
And spikes of untold beauty crowning earth,
Where save the lonely sportsman or some soul
Wandering from heated life and sick of toil,
No creature glides of human shape. Yet here
The Muskrat swims, and pout and perch display
Their arrowy swiftness, as the minnows dart
And break the filmy surface of the pool,
And the high-colored Bream, the fish of gems,
Their circular nests scoop from the yellow sand.
Nay, do not ask why was this beauty lavished
On these spots, do not believe that love in vain
Is poured upon the solitude, nor deem
Absence of Human life, absence of all!
Why is not here an answer to thy thought,
Contriving man, rearing the court-house,
Or rich pulpits lined, or deemest thou the charm
Of endless beauty might not thee avail,
More than a stuccoed wall where pictures hang,
Or rattling street, or state and camp, and town.