Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.

Middle States: Hudson, the River, N. Y.

The Hudson

By Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894)

’T WAS a vision of childhood that came with its dawn,

Ere the curtain that covered life’s day-star was drawn;

The nurse told the tale when the shadows grew long,

And the mother’s soft lullaby breathed it in song.

“There flows a fair stream by the hills of the west,”—

She sang to her boy as he lay on her breast;

“Along its smooth margin thy fathers have played;

Beside its deep waters their ashes are laid.”

I wandered afar from the land of my birth,

I saw the old rivers, renowned upon earth,

But fancy still painted that wide-flowing stream

With the many-hued pencil of infancy’s dream.

I saw the green banks of the castle-crowned Rhine,

Where the grapes drink the moonlight and change it to wine;

I stood by the Avon, whose waves as they glide

Still whisper his glory who sleeps at their side.

But my heart would still yearn for the sound of the waves

That sing as they flow by my forefathers’ graves;

If manhood yet honors my cheek with a tear,

I care not who sees it,—no blush for it here!

Farewell to the deep-bosomed stream of the West!

I fling this loose blossom to float on its breast;

Nor let the dear love of its children grow cold,

Till the channel is dry where its waters have rolled!