Poems (Proctor)/Contoocook River
For works with similar titles, see Contoocook River.
CONTOOCOOK RIVER.10
Of all the streams that seek the seaBy mountain pass, or sunny lea,Now where is one that dares to vieWith clear Contoocook, swift and shy?Monadnock's child, of snow-drifts born,The snows of many a winter mornAnd many a midnight dark and still,Heaped higher, whiter, day by day,To melt, at last, with suns of May,And steal, in tiny fall and rill,Down the long slopes of granite gray;Or filter slow through seam and cleftWhen frost and storm the rock have reft,To bubble cool in sheltered springsWhere the lone red-bird dips his wings,And the tired fox that gains their brinkStoops, safe from hound and horn, to drink.And rills and springs, grown broad and deep,Unite through gorge and glen to sweepIn roaring brooks that turn and takeThe over-floods of pool and lake,Till, to the fields, the hills deliverContoocook's bright and brimming river! O have you seen, from Hillsboro' townHow fast its tide goes hurrying down,With rapids now, and now a leapPast giant boulders, black and steep,Plunged in mid water, fain to keepIts 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 glowWhere clematis, the fairy, twines,Nor bowery islands where the breezeForever 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 hillThat overhangs the village plain,By sunny reaches, broad and still,It nears the bridge that spans its tide—The bridge whose arches low and wideIt ripples through—and should you leanA moment there, no lovelier sceneOn England's Wye, or Scotland's Tay,Would charm your gaze, a summer's day. O of what beauty 't is the giver—Contoocook's bright and brimming river!
And on it glides, by grove and glen,Dark woodlands, and the homes of men,With calm and meadow, fall and mill;Till, deep and clear, its waters fillThe channels round that gem of islesSacred to captives' woes and wiles,And eager half, half eddying back,Blend with the lordly Merrimack;And Merrimack whose tide is strongRolls gently, with its waves along,Monadnock's stream that, coy and fair,Has come, its larger life to share,And to the sea doth safe deliverContoocook's bright and brimming river!