Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.
The Glories of Our Thames
By William Cox Bennett (18201895)O,
Of Tweed and Ayr and Nith and Doon, but who has sung our Thames?
And much green Kent and Oxfordshire and Middlesex it shames
That they ’ve not given long since one song to their own noble Thames.
Flowing stilly through her valleys lone and winding by her hills;
But river, stream, or rivulet through all her breadth who names
For beauty and for pleasantness with our own pleasant Thames.
And well may rocky Derbyshire be noisy of her Dove;
But with all their grassy beauty, nor Dove nor Tamar shames,
Nor Wye, beneath her winding woods, our own green, pleasant Thames.
Or at Thames’ head whence the rushy Churn its gleaming waters brings,
From the Cotswolds to the heaving Nore, our praise and love it claims,
From the Isis’ fount to the salt-sea Nore, how pleasant is the Thames!
And Oxfordshire and Berkshire rank it all their streams above;
Nor Middlesex nor Essex nor Kent nor Surrey claims
A river equal in their love to their own noble Thames.
The Windrush and the Cherwell and the Thame to Dorset dear,
The Kennet and the Loddon that have music in their names,
But no grandeur like to that in yours, my own mast-shadowed Thames.
How many a town of wealth and fame, how famous through all lands!
Fair Oxford, pleasant Abingdon and Reading, world-known names,
Crowned Windsor, Hampton, Richmond, all add glory to our Thames.
A London with its might and wealth upon its banks shall see?
The greatness of earth’s greatest mart, that to herself she claims,
The world’s great wonder, England’s boast, gives glory to our Thames.
Such tribute rich from every land, such wealth from every shore,
Such memories of mighty ones whose memories are fames,
Who from their mighty deeds afar came homewards up the Thames?
Nelson and Wellington sleep there where Wren’s dome fills the skies;
Here stands proud England’s senate-house with all its mighty fames,
These are the boast of Englishmen, the glory of our Thames.
Her banks are thronged with freemen’s homes, are heaped with freemen’s graves;
Name the free races of the earth, and he who tells them names
Freemen of the free blood of those who dwell beside our Thames.
What love, by the far Ganges’ banks, by the green Murray’s side!
By Ohio’s waves, Columbia’s stream, how many a free heart names,
O, with what love! the old dear homes they left beside the Thames.
No hostile hosts, no stranger ranks for centuries past have trod;
O, may no foemen ever come, to threat your homes with flames!
But should they come we ’ll show them soon what hearts are by the Thames.
Through glories gone, through grandeurs here, through greatness still to be:
Through the free homes of England flow, and may yet higher fames,
Still nobler glories, star your course, O my own native Thames!