Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
Holyoke Valley
By Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833–1908)H
Northampton, over thee and me,
Since last I scaled those purple heights
That guard the pathway to the sea;
Of western ridges, whence again
I see, for miles beyond the town,
That sunlit stream divide the plain?
And watch the current’s downward flow,
And northward still, with threatening hand,
The river bends his ancient bow.
The sky, and count each shining spire,
From those which sparkle at my feet
To distant steeples tipt with fire.
The redbreasts sing their choral tune,
Within thy mantling elms aflame,
As in that other, dearer June,
And summer perfect beauty wore,
And all thy charms upon me burst,
While Life’s whole journey lay before.
Where happy maidens come and go,
And students saunter in the lanes
And hum the songs I used to know.
And walk with solitary feet:
How strange these wonted ways have grown!
Where are the friends I used to meet?
The rippling metres flow to-day,
But other boys at sunset dream
Of love, and laurels far away;
Less sweet the faces are that peer
Than those of old, and voices come
Less musically to my ear.
The murmur of my sweetheart’s vows,
When Life was something worth to live,
And Love was young beneath your boughs!
That can from year to year outlast
Those charms a thousand times more fair,
And, oh, our joys so quickly past!
Henceforth: but they shall yet be led,
Revisiting these ancient parts,
Like me to mourn their glory fled.