Classic Poem

I.

Gray streaks of dawn are faintly seen;
The stars of half their light are shorn;
The Hudson, with its banks of green,
Lies tranquil in the early morn.

The earth and sky breathe sacred rest —
A holy peace too sweet to break —
A spell like that divine behest
Which stilled the Galilean lake.

The circling hills, with foreheads fair,
Await with joy the crowning rays;
All nature bows in grateful prayer;
The templed groves respond with praise.

Ye trembling shafts of glorious light,
Dart from the east with golden gleam;
Cleave the dark shield of fleeing Night,
And slay her with your arrowy beam.

Cities and hamlets, up and down
This level highway to the sea,
Along the banks sit gray and brown,
Dim shadows musing dreamily.

Adown the river sloops and ships
Float slowly with the lazy tide;
And round the bluff a paddle dips
Where once the storm-ship used to ride.

The vision widens as the morn
Sweeps through the portals of the day;
Purple and rosy mists adorn
Mountain and hill-top far away.

II.

The Catskills to the northward rise
With massive swell and towering crest —
The old-time " mountains of the skies, "
The threshold of eternal rest;

Where Manitou once lived and reigned,
Great Spirit of a race gone by;
And Ontiora lies enchained,
With face uplifted to the sky.

The dream-land, too, of later days,
Where Rip Van Winkle slept in peace,
Wrapped up in deep poetic haze —
A twenty years of sweet release.

Ay, burning years! a nation's forge!
To wake to freedom grown to more —
To find another painted " George "
Above the old familiar door.

Through summer heat and winter snow,
Beside that rushing mountain stream,
Just how he slept we cannot know;
Perhaps 'twas all a pleasant dream.

Mayhap in many a wintry squall,
Or howling blast, or blinding storm,
He thought he heard Dame Gretchen call,
And that sufficed to keep him warm;

Or else that flagon's wondrous draught,
Distilled in some weird elfin-land,
Drawn from the keg old Hendrick quaffed,
And shared by all his silent band.

O legends full of life and health,
That live when records fail and die,
Ye are the Hudson's richest wealth,
The frondage of her history!

III.

And musing here this quiet morn,
I call up pictures far away,
Of fountains where thy wave is born,
Of rills that in deep shadows play;

Of forest trail, and lake and stream,
Rich poems bound in green and gold,
Whose leaves reflect the autumn gleam
Ere summer months are growing old;

Of camp-fires bright with dancing flame,
Where dreams and visions floated free,
And Rosalind, with Annie's name,
Interpreted the dreams to me:

Lake Avalanche with rocky wall,
And Henderson's dark-wooded shore,
Your echoes linger still, and call
Unto my soul for evermore.

Tahawas, rising stern and grand,
" Cloud-sunderer, " lift thy forehead high;
Guard well thy sun-kissed mountain land,
Whose lakes seem borrowed from the sky.

O Hudson! mountain-born and free,
Thy youth a deep impression takes;
For, mountain-guarded to the sea,
Thy course is but a chain of lakes.