Along the trail a book of lyrics by Richard Hovey |
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A WINTER THOUGHT OF DARTMOUTH IN MANHATTAN |
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 | Along the trail |  |
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A WINTER THOUGHT OF DARTMOUTH IN MANHATTAN
Old Mother!
Mother off in the hills, by the banks of the beautiful river!
—River lacquered with pale green luminous ice
Now, and the shouldered ridges ermined with flushed white snow—
Our thoughts go back to thee, Mother,
Straggle up the Connecticut, and by Bellows Falls and the Junction,
Find thee at last on thy hills, and embrace thy knees, old Mother.
Mother off in the hills, by the banks of the beautiful river!
—River lacquered with pale green luminous ice
Now, and the shouldered ridges ermined with flushed white snow—
Our thoughts go back to thee, Mother,
Straggle up the Connecticut, and by Bellows Falls and the Junction,
Find thee at last on thy hills, and embrace thy knees, old Mother.
We do not follow our thoughts upon that journey;
We have left thee, as men leave mothers,
Choosing and wedding their wives and cleaving thenceforth to them only.
We have left thee, as men leave mothers,
Choosing and wedding their wives and cleaving thenceforth to them only.
Ah, she is stronger than thou, she who now holds us;
She that sits by the sea, new-crowned with a five-fold tiara;
She of the great twin harbors, our lady of rivers and islands;
Tower-topped Manhattan,
With feet reeded round with the masts of the five great oceans
Flowering the flags of all nations, flaunting and furling,—
City of ironways, city of ferries,
Sea-Queen and Earth-Queen!
She that sits by the sea, new-crowned with a five-fold tiara;
She of the great twin harbors, our lady of rivers and islands;
Tower-topped Manhattan,
With feet reeded round with the masts of the five great oceans
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City of ironways, city of ferries,
Sea-Queen and Earth-Queen!
Look, how the line of her roofs coming down from the north
Breaks into surf-leap of granite—jagged sierras—
Upheaval volcanic, lined sharp on the violet sky
Where the red moon, lop-sided, past the full,
Over their ridge swims in the tide of space,
And the harbor waves laugh softly, silently.
Breaks into surf-leap of granite—jagged sierras—
Upheaval volcanic, lined sharp on the violet sky
Where the red moon, lop-sided, past the full,
Over their ridge swims in the tide of space,
And the harbor waves laugh softly, silently.
Look, how the overhead train at the Morningside curve
Loops like a sea-born dragon its sinuous flight,
Loops in the night in and out, high up in the air,
Like a serpent of stars with the coil and undulant reach of waves.
Loops like a sea-born dragon its sinuous flight,
Loops in the night in and out, high up in the air,
Like a serpent of stars with the coil and undulant reach of waves.
From under the Bridge at noon
See from the yonder shore how the great curves rise and converge,
Like the beams of the universe, like the masonry of the sky,
Like the arches set for the corners of the world,
The foundation-stone of the orbic spheres and spaces.
Is she not fair and terrible, O Mother—
City of Titan thews, deep-breasted, colossal-limbed,
Splendid with the spoil of nations, myriad-mooded Manhattan?
Behold, we are hers—she has claimed us; and who has power to withstand her?
See from the yonder shore how the great curves rise and converge,
Like the beams of the universe, like the masonry of the sky,
Like the arches set for the corners of the world,
The foundation-stone of the orbic spheres and spaces.
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City of Titan thews, deep-breasted, colossal-limbed,
Splendid with the spoil of nations, myriad-mooded Manhattan?
Behold, we are hers—she has claimed us; and who has power to withstand her?
Nevertheless, old Mother, we do not forget thee.
Thine is the past!
Thine are the old recollections, the love of the boyhood still in us,
As the sprout still lives in the bough and remembers March in the summer.
Sword and ploughshare and engine forget not the days
When the crude ore went to the smelting and the hammers rang on thy anvils.
Thine is the past!
Thine are the old recollections, the love of the boyhood still in us,
As the sprout still lives in the bough and remembers March in the summer.
Sword and ploughshare and engine forget not the days
When the crude ore went to the smelting and the hammers rang on thy anvils.
This is a letter we send from ocean-dominioned Manhattan,
Bearing the love of a boy from the heart of a man,
Bearing the never-evading remembrance of thee and the hills and the river,
Thornton and Wentworth and Reed and the century-hollowed stairways of Dartmouth,
The old rooms where we laughed and strove and sang,
Where others now—hark, do I hear them?—
Sing in the winter night, while Orion rises and glistens.
Bearing the love of a boy from the heart of a man,
Bearing the never-evading remembrance of thee and the hills and the river,
Thornton and Wentworth and Reed and the century-hollowed stairways of Dartmouth,
The old rooms where we laughed and strove and sang,
Where others now—hark, do I hear them?—
Sing in the winter night, while Orion rises and glistens.
For the Dartmouth Dinner, New York, 1898.
| Along the trail | |