76
CONTOOCOOK RIVER
O have you seen, from Hillsboro' town
How fast its tide goes hurrying down,
With rapids now, and now a leap
Past giant boulders, black and steep,
Plunged in mid water, fain to keep
Its current from the meadows green?
But, flecked with foam, it speeds along;
And not the birch-tree's silvery sheen,
Nor the soft lull of murmuring pines,
Nor hermit thrushes, fluting low,
Nor ferns, nor cardinal flowers that glow
Where clematis, the fairy, twines,
Nor bowery islands where the breeze
Forever whispers to the trees,
Can stay its course, or still its song;
Ceaseless it flows till, round its bed,
The vales of Henniker are spread,
Their banks all set with golden grain,
Or stately trees whose vistas gleam—
A double forest—in the stream;
And, winding 'neath the pine-crowned hill
That overhangs the village plain,
By sunny reaches, broad and still,
It nears the bridge that spans its tide—
The bridge whose arches low and wide
It ripples through—and should you lean
A moment there, no lovelier scene
On England's Wye, or Scotland's Tay,
Would charm your gaze, a summer's day.
How fast its tide goes hurrying down,
With rapids now, and now a leap
Past giant boulders, black and steep,
Plunged in mid water, fain to keep
Its current from the meadows green?
But, flecked with foam, it speeds along;
And not the birch-tree's silvery sheen,
Nor the soft lull of murmuring pines,
Nor hermit thrushes, fluting low,
Nor ferns, nor cardinal flowers that glow
Where clematis, the fairy, twines,
Nor bowery islands where the breeze
Forever whispers to the trees,
Can stay its course, or still its song;
Ceaseless it flows till, round its bed,
The vales of Henniker are spread,
Their banks all set with golden grain,
Or stately trees whose vistas gleam—
A double forest—in the stream;
And, winding 'neath the pine-crowned hill
That overhangs the village plain,
By sunny reaches, broad and still,
It nears the bridge that spans its tide—
The bridge whose arches low and wide
It ripples through—and should you lean
A moment there, no lovelier scene
On England's Wye, or Scotland's Tay,
Would charm your gaze, a summer's day.
