Since then, what steps have trod thy border!  Here
On thy green bank, the woodmann of the swamp
Has laid his axe, the reaper of the hill
His sickle, as they stooped to taste thy stream. 
The sportsman, tired with wandering in the still
September noon, has bathed his heated brow
In thy cool current.  Shouting boys, let loose
For a wild holiday, have quaintly shaped
Into a cup the folded linden leaf,
And dipped thy sliding crystal.  From the wars
Returning, the plumed soldier by thy side
Has sat, and mused how pleasant ’twere to dwell
In such a spot, and be as free as thou,
And move for no man’s bidding more.  At eve,
When thou wert crimson with the crimson sky,
Lovers have gazed upon thee, and have thought
Their mingled lives should flow as peacefully
And brightly as thy waters.  Here the sage,
Gazing into thy self-replenished depth,
Has seen eternal order circumscribe
And bind the motions of eternal change,
And from the gushing of thy simple fount
Has reasoned to the mighty universe.

Is there no other change for thee, that lurks
Among the future ages?  Will not man
Seek out strange arts to wither and deform
The pleasant landscape which thou makest green? 
Or shall the veins that feed thy constant stream
Be choked in middle earth, and flow no more
For ever, that the water-plants along
Thy channel perish, and the bird in vain
Alight to drink?  Haply shall these green hills
Sink, with the lapse of years, into the gulf
Of ocean waters, and thy source be lost
Amidst the bitter brine?  Or shall they rise,
Upheaved in broken cliffs and airy peaks,
Haunts of the eagle and the snake, and thou
Gush midway from the bare and barren steep?

THE WINDS.

I.

Ye winds, ye unseen currents of the air,
  Softly ye played a few brief hours ago;
Ye bore the murmuring bee; ye tossed the hair
  O’er maiden cheeks, that took a fresher glow;
Ye rolled the round white cloud through depths of blue;
Ye shook from shaded flowers the lingering dew;
Before you the catalpa’s blossoms flew,
  Light blossoms, dropping on the grass like snow.

II.

How are ye changed!  Ye take the cataract’s sound;
  Ye take the whirlpool’s fury and its might;
The mountain shudders as ye sweep the ground;
  The valley woods lie prone beneath your flight. 
The clouds before you shoot like eagles past;
The homes of men are rocking in your blast;
Ye lift the roofs like autumn leaves, and cast,
  Skyward, the whirling fragments out of sight.

III.