Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.
Thames
By Isabella Craig Knox (1831–1903)A
Through the stems of the beeches;
Through the screen of the willows it shimmers
In long winding reaches;
Flowing so softly that scarcely
It seems to be flowing,
But the reeds of the low little islands
Are bent to its going;
And soft as the breath of a sleeper
Its heaving and sighing,
In the coves where the fleets of the lilies
At anchor are lying:
It looks as if fallen asleep
In the lap of the meadows, and smiling
Like a child in the grass, dreaming deep
Of the flowers and their golden beguiling.
Underneath the dark arches;
Across it the broad shadow looms,
And the eager crowd marches;
Where waiting the feet of the city,
Strong and swift it is flowing;
On its bosom the ships of the nations
Are coming and going;
Heavy laden, it labors and spends,
In a great strain of duty,
The power that was gathered and nursed
In the calm and the beauty.
Like thee, noble river, like thee!
Let our lives in beginning and ending
Fair in their gathering be,
And great in the time of their spending.