Poems About Rivers

The more we live, more brief appear Our life's succeeding stages:A day to childhood seems a year, And years like passing ages.

The gladsome current of our youth Ere passion yet disorders,Steals lingering like a river smooth Along its grassy borders.

But as the careworn cheek grows wan, And sorrow's shafts fly thicker,Ye Stars, that measure life to man, Why seem your courses quicker?

When joys have lost their bloom and breath And life itself is vapid,Why, as we reach the Falls of Death, Feel we its tide more rapid?

It may be strange--yet who would change Time's course to lower speeding,When one by one our friends have gone And left our bosoms bleeding?

Heaven gives our years of fading strength Indemnifying fleetness;And those of youth, a seeming length, Proportion'd to their sweetness.

I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide, As being pass’d away.--Vain sympathies! For, backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,I see what was, and is, and will abide;Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide; The Form remains, the Function never dies; While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,We Men, who in our morn of youth defiedThe elements, must vanish;--be it so! Enough, if something from our hands have power To live, and act, and serve the future hour;And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, Through love, through hope, and faith’s transcendent dower,We feel that we are greater than we know.

Traveler

Why dost thou wildly rush and roar, Mad River, O Mad River?Wilt thou not pause and cease to pourThy hurrying, headlong waters o'er This rocky shelf forever?

What secret trouble stirs thy breast? Why all this fret and flurry?Dost thou not know that what is bestIn this too restless world is rest From overwork and worry?

The River

Clear and cool, clear and cool,By laughing shallow and dreaming pool;Cool and clear, cool and clear,By shining shingle and foaming weir;Under the crag where the ouzel sings,And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings,Undefiled, for the undefiled;Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child.

Dank and foul, dank and foul,By the smoky town in its murky cowl;Foul and dank, foul and dank,By wharf and sewer and slimy bank;

Willie, fold your little hands; Let it drop,--that "soldier" toy;Look where father's picture stands,-- Father, that here kissed his boyNot a mouth since,--father kind,Who this night may (never mindMother's sob, my Willie dear)Cry out loud that He may hearWho is God of battles,--cry,"God keep father safe this day By the Alma River!"

Ask no more, child. Never heed

My love o’er the water bends dreaming; It glideth and glideth away:She sees there her own beauty, gleaming Through shadow and ripple and spray.

O tell her, thou murmuring river, As past her your light wavelets roll,How steadfast that image for ever Shines pure in pure depths of my soul.

Says Tweed to Till-- ‘What gars ye rin sae still?’ Says Till to Tweed--‘Though ye rin with speed And I rin slaw,For ae man that ye droon I droon twa.’

When first by Eden Tree,The Four Great Rivers ran,To each was appointed a ManHer Prince and Ruler to be.

But after this was ordained,(The ancient legends tell),There came dark Israel,For whom no River remained.

Then He Whom the Rivers obeySaid to him: 'Fling on the groundA handful of yellow clay,And a Fifth Great River shall run,

KNOW you the river near to Grez, A river deep and clear?Among the lilies all the way,That ancient river runs to-day From snowy weir to weir.

Old as the Rhine of great renown, She hurries clear and fast,She runs amain by field and townFrom south to north, from up to down, To present on from past.

The love I hold was borne by her; And now, though far away,My lonely spirit hears the stirOf water round the starling spur Beside the bridge at Grez.

So may that love forever hold In life an equal pace;So may that love grow never old,But, clear and pure and fountain-cold, Go on from grace to grace.

O mountain Stream! the Shepherd and his CotAre privileg'd Inmates of deep solitude:Nor would the nicest Anchorite excludeA Field or two of brighter green, or PlotOf tillage-ground, that seemeth like a spotOf stationary sunshine: thou hast view'dThese only, Duddon! with their paths renew'dBy fits and starts, yet this contents thee not.Thee hath some awful Spirit impell'd to leave,Utterly to desert, the haunts of men,Though simple thy Companions were and few;And through this wilderness a passage cleaveAttended but by thy own Voice, save whenThe Clouds and Fowls of the air thy way pursue.

Thy summer voice, Musketaquit,Repeats the music of the rain;But sweeter rivers pulsing flitThrough thee, as thou through Concord Plain.

Thou in thy narrow banks art pent:The stream I love unbounded goesThrough flood and sea and firmament;Through light, through life, it forward flows.

I see the inundation sweet,I hear the spending of the streamThrough years, through men, through Nature fleet,Through love and thought, through power and dream.

Musketaquit, a goblin strong,Of shard and flint makes jewels gay;They lose their grief who hear his song,And where he winds is the day of day.

So forth and brighter fares my stream,--Who drink it shall not thirst again;No darkness stains its equal gleam.And ages drop in it like rain.

THE swallows flew in the curves of an eight Above the river-gleam In the wet June’s last beam:Like little crossbows animateThe swallows flew in the curves of an eight Above the river-gleam.

Planing up shavings of crystal spray A moor-hen darted out From the bank thereabout,And through the stream-shine ripped his way;Planing up shavings of crystal spray A moor-hen darted out.

Closed were the kingcups; and the mead Dripped in monotonous green, Though the day’s morning sheenHad shown it golden and honeybee’d;Closed were the kingcups; and the mead Dripped in monotonous green.

And never I turned my head, alack, While these things met my gaze Through the pane’s drop-drenched glaze,To see the more behind my back . . .O never I turned, but let, alack, These less things hold my gaze!

The gulls are mad-in-love with the river,And the river unveils her face and smiles.In her sleep-brooding eyes they mirror their shining wings.She lies on silver pillows: the sun leans over her.He warms and warms her, he kisses and kisses her.There are sparks in her hair and she stirs in laughter.Be careful, my beautiful waking one! you will catch on fire.Wheeling and flying with the foam of the sea on their breasts,The ineffable mists of the sea clinging to their wild wings,Crying the rapture of the boundless ocean,The gulls are mad-in-love with the river.Wake! we are the dream thoughts flying from your heart.Wake! we are the songs of desire flowing from your bosom.O, I think the sun will lend her his great wingsAnd the river will fly away to the sea with the mad-in-love birds.

Let mighty pens praise mighty rivers— The Yang-tse-Kiang or Hoang-Ho,In climes that desiccate the livers Of foreigners who come and go.

Some may prefer the Mississippi, Others the Nile, whose genial floodEnriches the industrious “Gippy” With gifts of fertilizing mud.

BATES found the Amazon amazing; But, all unfit for lordly themes;I choose the simpler task of praising One of our humble Berkshire streams.