Page:Poems Dorr.djvu/143

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VERMONT
123
XIII.

To-day the other dies.
It walked in humbler guise,
Nor stood where all men's eyes
Were fixed upon it.
Earth may not pause to lay
A wreath upon its bier,
Nor the world heed to-day
Our dead that lieth here!

Yet we'll they loved each other—
It and its greater brother.
To loftiest stature grown,
Each earned its own renown;
Each sought of Time a crown,
  And each has won it;

XIV.

  But what to us are Centuries dead,
  And rolling Years forever fled,
  Compared with thee, O grand and fair
   Vermont—our Goddess-mother?
Strong with the strength of thy verdant hills,
Fresh with the freshness of mountain-rills,
Pure as the breath of the fragant pine,
Glad with the gladness of youth divine,
Serenely thou sittest throned to-day
Where the free winds that round thee play
Rejoice in thy waves of sun-bright hair,
   O thou, our glorious mother!
Rejoice in thy beautiful strength and say
   Earth holds not such another!