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Stars of gold the green sod fretting,
Clematis the thicket netting,
Silvery moss her locks down-letting
Like a maiden brave:
Arrowhead his dark flag wetting
In thy darker wave.

By the River's broken border
Wading though the ferns,
When a darker deep, and broader,
Fills its bays and turns;
Up along the winding ridges,
Down the sudden-dropped descent,
Rounding pools with reedy edges,
Silent coves in alders pent,—
Through the river-flags and sedges
Dreamily I went.

Dreamily, for perfect Summer
Hushed the vales with misty heat;
In the wood, a drowsy drummer,
The woodpecker, faintly beat;
Songs were silent, save the voices
Of the mountain and the flood,
Save the wisdom of the voices
Only known in solitude:
But to me, a lonely liver,
All that fading afternoon
From the undermining river
Came a burden in its tune:—
Came a tone my ear remembers,
And I said, “What grief thee grieves,
Pacing through thy leafy chambers,
And thy voice of rest bereaves?
Winds of change that wail and bluster,
Sunless morns, and shivering eves,
Carry sweets to thee belonging,—
All of light thy sun receives;
River-growths that fold and cluster,
Following where the waters lead,
Bunches of the purple aster,
Mints, and blood-dropped jewel-weed,
Like carnelians hanging
Mid their pale-green leaves;
Wherefore then, with sunlight heaping
Perfect joy and promised good,
When thy flow should pulse in keeping
With the beating of the blood,
Through thy dim green shadows sweeping,
When the folded heart is sleeping,
Dost thou mourn and brood?”

Wider, wilder, round the headland,
Black the River swung,
Over skirt and hanging woodland
Deeper stillness hung.
As once more I stood a dreamer
The waste weeds among,
Doubt, and pain, and grief extremer,
Seemed to fall away;
But a dim voluptuous sorrow
Smote and thrilled my fancy thoro'
Gazing over bend and bay;
Saying, “Thou, O mournful River!
As of old dost wind and waste:
Falling down the reef for ever,
Rustling with a sound of haste
Through the dry-fringed meadow bottom;
But my hands, aside thy bed,
Gather now no gems of Autumn,
Or the dainties Summer shed:
By the margins hoarsely flowing,
Yellow-dock and garget growing,
Drifts of wreck, and muddy stain,
By river-wash, and dregs of rain.
Yet, though bound in desolation,
Bound and locked, thy waters pour,
With a cry of exultation
Uncontained by shore and shore;
With a booming, deep vibration,
In its wind my cheek is wet,—
But, unheeding woe or warning,
Thou through all the barren hours
Seem'st to sing of Summer yet;
Thou, with voice all sorrow scorning,
Babblest on of leaves and flowers
Wearily, whilst I go mourning
O'er thy fallen banks and bowers;
O'er a life small grace adorning,
With lost aims, and broken powers
Wreck-flung, like these wave-torn beaches,
Tear-trenched, as by winter showers.
But a faith thy music teaches,
Might I to its knowledge climb,
Still the yearning heart beseeches
Truth; as when in summer time
Through these dells I vaguely sought her,
In the dreamy summer time.”
So the margin paths and reaches,
Once again I left to roam,
Left behind the roaring water,
Eddy-knots, and clots of foam;
But it still disturbed me ever,
As a dream no reason yields,
From the ruin of the river,
Winding up through empty fields,
That I could not gather something
Of the meaning and belief,
In the voice of its triumphing,
Or the wisdom of its grief.