Poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich / [by Thomas Bailey Aldrich] [electronic text]

PISCATAQUA RIVER.

THOU singest by the gleaming isles, By woods, and fields of corn, Thou singest, and the sunlight smiles Upon my birthday morn.

But I within a city, I, So full of vague unrest, Would almost give my life to lie An hour upon thy breast!

To let the wherry listless go, And, wrapt in dreamy joy, Dip, and surge idly to and fro, Like the red harbor-buoy;

To sit in happy indolence, To rest upon the oars, And catch the heavy earthy scents That blow from summer shores;

To see the rounded sun go down, And with its parting fires Light up the windows of the town And burn the tapering spires;

And then to hear the muffled tolls From steeples slim and white, And watch, among the Isles of Shoals, The Beacon's orange light.

O River! flowing to the main Through woods, and fields of corn, Hear thou my longing and my pain This sunny birthday morn;

And take this song which sorrow shapes To music like thine own, And sing it to the cliffs and capes And crags where I am known!