The poetical works of William H. C. Hosmer :: :: University of Virginia Library

355

MY OWN DARK GENESEE.

They told me southern land could boast
Charms richer than mine own:
Sun, moon, and stars of brighter glow,
And winds of gentler tone;
And parting from each olden haunt,
Familiar rock and tree,
From that sweet vale I wandered far—
Washed by the Genesee.

I pined beneath a foreign sky,
Though birds, like harps in tune,
Lulled Winter on a couch of flowers
Clad in the garb of June.
In vain on reefs of coral broke
The glad waves of the sea;
For, like thy voice they sounded not,
My own dark Genesee!

When Christmas came, though round me grew
The lemon-tree and lime,
And the warm sky above me threw
The blue of summer-time;
I thought of my loved northern home,
And wished for wings to flee
Where frost-bound, between frozen banks,
Lay hushed the Genesee.

For the gray, mossed paternal roof
My throbbing bosom yearned,
And ere the flight of many moons
My steps I homeward turned;

356

My heart, to joy a stranger long,
Was tuned to rapture's key,
When ear the murmur heard once more
Of my own Genesee.

Ambition from the scenes of youth
May others lure away
To chase the phantom of renown
Throughout their little day;
I would not, for a palace proud
And slave of pliant knee,
Forsake a cabin in thy vale,
My own dark Genesee.