The poetical writings of Elizabeth Oakes Smith :: :: University of Virginia Library

[The writer's first passage up the Hudson was on a tranquil night at the close of summer, a clear moonshine making the stars pale in the deep sky. Nothing could exceed the loveliness of the scene, as doubling point after point, the river at each turn revealed a new aspect of beauty. It was no longer the majestic Hudson, sweeping its proud waters to the ocean, bearing a fleet upon its bosom, and making a grand highway for wealth and luxury; but a graceful, sentient creature, with an onward purpose, gliding amid the hills and smiling as it overcame the obstacles in its path.]

Oh! river, gently as a wayward child,
I saw thee 'mid the moonlight hills at rest;
Capricious thing, with thine own beauty wild,
How didst thou still the throbbings of thy breast!
Rude headlands were about thee, stooping round
As if amid the hills to hold thy stay;
But thou didst hear the far-off ocean sound,
Inviting thee from hill and vale away,
To mingle thy deep waters with its own;
And, at that voice, thy steps did onward glide,
Onward from echoing hill and valley lone.
Like thine, oh, be my course—nor turned aside,
While listing to the soundings of a land,
That like the ocean call invites me to its strand.