Pocahontas and Other Poems (New York)/Vale of the Mohawk
VALE OF THE MOHAWK.
Vale of the Mohawk, freshly green,
What beauty in thy bound is seen!
What verdure clothes thy fair retreats,
How revels every gale in sweets!
Each leaf with dewy lustre shining,
Each vine with strong embrace entwining,
And where thy rich alluvial glows,
And full-gorged Plenty seeks repose,
It seems that scarce the hand of toil
Need vex the bosom of the soil,
So kindly Earth the seed receives,
So free returns the weight of sheaves.
And there thy river, pure and sheen,
Flows on, its fringed banks between,
Proud of its realm, and pleased to glide
To meet old Hudson's mightier tide.
From meads of clover rich and high
We saw the plundering bees go by,
And yet they scarce the surface stirr'd
Of sweets, on which the expecting herd
Shall banquet, when the mowers blithe
In the shorn flower-cups dip their scythe.
We saw the reaper girded meet
To sweep away the ripen'd wheat:
But to his throat advancing high
Its bearded lance and russet eye,
He stoutly wrestled on his way,
Like swimmer with the billowy bay,
Till all behind his path of toil
Lay in dead waves, the harvest-spoil.
—While we, of bleak New-England's coast,
That ne'er a mine of wealth might boast,
Save what her sons laborious find
Who dig the quarry of the mind,
(And, certes, they such wealth who hold,
May well contemn the lust of gold)
We, still delighted and amazed,
Upon these haunts of richness gazed,
Nor spared to praise, with heart elate,
The splendour of the "Empire State:"
—But lauded more, in accents bland,
The glory of our Native Land,
Who, if she simply understood
The flowing fulness of her good,
And felt her blessings as she ought,
And praised her Maker in her thought,
And did His will, might surely be
The very happiest of the free.