The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 4.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

---

[176] We know the world is rich with streams
     Renowned in song and story,
Whose music murmurs through our dreams
     Of human love and glory:
We know that Arno's banks are fair,
     And Rhine has castled shadows,
And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr
     Go singing down their meadows.

But while, unpictured and unsung
     By painter or by poet,
Our river waits the tuneful tongue
     And cunning hand to show it,—
We only know the fond skies lean
     Above it, warm with blessing,
And the sweet soul of our Undine
     Awakes to our caressing.

No fickle sun-god holds the flocks
     That graze its shores in keeping;
No icy kiss of Dian mocks
     The youth beside it sleeping:
Our Christian river loveth most
     The beautiful and human;
The heathen streams of Naiads boast,
     But ours of man and woman.

The miner in his cabin hears
     The ripple we are hearing;
It whispers soft to homesick ears
     Around the settler's clearing:
In Sacramento's vales of corn,
     Or Santee's bloom of cotton,