The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 2.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

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[74]
     Along its tawny gravel-bed
Broad-flowing, swift, and still,
     As if its meadow levels felt
The hurry of the hill,
     Noiseless between its banks of green
From curve to curve it slips;
     The drowsy maple-shadows rest
Like fingers on its lips.

A waif from Carroll's wildest hills,
     Unstoried and unknown;
The ursine legend of its name
     Prowls on its banks alone.
Yet flowers as fair its slopes adorn
     As ever Yarrow knew,
Or, under rainy Irish skies,
     By Spenser's Mulla grew;
And through the gaps of leaning trees
     Its mountain cradle shows:
The gold against the amethyst,
     The green against the rose.

Touched by a light that hath no name,
     A glory never sung,
Aloft on sky and mountain wall
     Are God's great pictures hung.
How changed the summits vast and old!
     No longer granite-browed,
They melt in rosy mist; the rock
     Is softer than the cloud;
The valley holds its breath; no leaf
     Of all its elms is twirled:
The silence of eternity
     Seems falling on the world.