Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
Rio Sacramento
By Bayard Taylor (1825–1878)S
Down the rough Nevada foaming,
Fain my heart would join thy water
In its glad, impetuous roaming,
For thy valley’s fairest daughter
Watches oft to see thee coming!
From the shining threads that wove thee,—
From the mountain woods that darken
All the mountain heaven above thee,
Teach her ear thy song to hearken,
And, for what it says, to love thee!
Lead me downward to the glory
Of thy green and flowery meadows;
I will leave the deserts hoary,
For thy grove of quiet shadows
And my love’s impassioned story.
Every dancing rainbow broken
When thy falling waves are shattered,
Is a glad and beckoning token
Of the hopes so warmly scattered
And the vows that we have spoken!
She, beside thee, waits my coming;
Teach my step thy bounding fleetness,
Towards the bower of beauty roaming,
Where she stands, in maiden sweetness,
Gazing idly on thy foaming!