The River

And I behold once moreMy old familiar haunts; here the blue river,The same blue wonder that my infant eyeAdmired, sage doubting whence the traveller came,--Whence brought his sunny bubbles ere he washedThe fragrant flag-roots in my father's fields,And where thereafter in the world he went.Look, here he is, unaltered, save that nowHe hath broke his banks and flooded all the valesWith his redundant waves.Here is the rock where, yet a simple child,I caught with bended pin my earliest fish,Much triumphing,--and these the fieldsOver whose flowers I chased the butterflyA blooming hunter of a fairy fine.And hark! where overhead the ancient crowsHold their sour conversation in the sky:--These are the same, but I am not the same,But wiser than I was, and wise enoughNot to regret the changes, tho' they costMe many a sigh. Oh, call not Nature dumb;These trees and stones are audible to me,These idle flowers, that tremble in the wind,I understand their faery syllables,And all their sad significance. The wind,That rustles down the well-known forest road--It hath a sound more eloquent than speech.The stream, the trees, the grass, the sighing wind,All of them utter sounds of 'monishmentAnd grave parental love.They are not of our race, they seem to say,And yet have knowledge of our moral race,And somewhat of majestic sympathy,Something of pity for the puny clay,That holds and boasts the immeasurable mind.I feel as I were welcome to these treesAfter long months of weary wandering,Acknowledged by their hospitable boughs;They know me as their son, for side by side,They were coeval with my ancestors,Adorned with them my country's primitive times,And soon may give my dust their funeral shade.