Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
The Lehigh
By Augusta MooreA
My wearied feet are taking
The well-known path along thy brink,
And memory is waking,—
Sad harp of mine, awake, awake,
And sing the pensive story,
That sighs and murmurs through my head
Beneath this forest hoary.
The pilgrim late returning
To view once more the autumn fires
Along thy valley burning?
To view her father’s heritage,
That father lowly sleeping,
Far from the green and lonely grave
In the old hemlock’s keeping.
Its shadows o’er thee bending,
Its lofty pines, its laurel blooms,
Their sweet enchantment lending.
Along thy banks the wandering vine,
Its purple fruit untasted,
Still casts upon thy careless tide
Its clustered treasures, wasted.
To drink, at eve and morning;
And still the laurel blooms as bright
As in my life’s glad dawning.
Thy gray rocks seem no older grown,
Thy beauties fresh and tender
As when we came, a frolic band,
Our childhood’s praise to render.
Our glad, beloved river;
And all around was charmed ground,
Our home! delightful ever.
Our nightingale the whippoorwill,
The water-elves our cronies,
Their camp-fire smoke of mist we knew;
Our game the trout and conies.
I catch a tone of gladness,
That yearning love is in thy touch,
That thou wouldst soothe my sadness.
Only in dreams for thirty years
Have I beheld thee flowing,—
Whither away so fast, dear stream?
Why dost thou moan in going?
Moan on, O faithful river!
Where all the lights of home went out,
To shine no more forever.
But stay, and tell me where are they
That, in the years long vanished,
Beside thy waters played with me,—
Hast thou their memory banished?