Thus sung they in the English boat A holy and a cheerful note: And all the way, to guide their chime, With falling oars they kept the time. Andrew Marvell [1621-1678] INDIAN NAMES YE say, they all have passed away, That their light canoes have vanished That, 'mid the forests where they roamed, 'Tis where Ontario's billow Like Ocean's surge is curled; The echo of the world; Where red Missouri bringeth Rich tribute from the West, And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps On green Virginia's breast. Ye say, their cone-like cabins, That clustered o'er the vale, Have fled away, like withered leaves But their memory liveth on your hills, Their baptism on your shore, Your everlasting rivers speak Old Massachusetts wears it And broad Ohio bears it Amid his young renown; Connecticut hath wreathed it Wachuset hides its lingering voice Your mountains build their monument, Though ye destroy their dust. Lydia Huntly Sigourney [1791-1865] MANNAHATTA I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city, Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name. Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient, I see that the word of my city is that word from of old, Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb, Rich, hemmed thick all around with sail-ships and steamships, an island sixteen miles long, solid-founded, Numberless crowded streets, high growths of iron, slender, strong, light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies, Tides swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown, The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining islands, the heights, the villas, The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the lighters, the ferry-boats, the black sea-steamers well-modelled, The down-town streets, the jobbers' houses of business, the houses of business of the ship-merchants and moneybrokers, the river-streets, Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week, The carts hauling goods, the manly race of drivers of horses, the brown-faced sailors, The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing clouds aloft, The winter snows, the sleigh-bells, the broken ice in the river, passing along up or down with the flood-tide or ebb-tide, The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-formed, beautiful-faced, looking you straight in the eyes, Trottoirs thronged, vehicles, Broadway, the women, the shops and shows, A million people-manners free and superb-open voiceshospitality-the most courageous and friendly young men, City of hurried and sparkling waters! city of spires and masts! City nested in bays! my city! Walt Whitman [1819-1892] THE SONG OF THE COLORADO FROM the heart of the mighty mountains strong-souled for my fate I came, My far-drawn track to a nameless sea through a land without a name; And the earth rose up to hold me, to bid me linger and stay; And the brawn and bone of my mother's race were set to bar my way. Yet I stayed not, I could not linger; my soul was tense to the call The wet winds sing when the long waves leap and beat on the far sea wall. I stayed not, I could not linger; patient, resistless, alone, How narrow that first dim pathway—yet deepening hour by hour! Years, ages, eons, spent and forgot, while I gathered me might and power To answer the call that led me, to carve my road to the sea, Till my flood swept out with that greater tide as tireless and tameless and free. From the far, wild land that bore me, I drew my blood as wild I, born of the glacier's glory, born of the uplands piled Like stairs to the door of heaven, that the Maker of all might go Down from his place with honor, to look on the world and know That the sun and the wind and the waters, and the white ice cold and still, Were moving aright in the plan he had made, shaping his wish and will. When the spirit of worship was on me, turning alone, apart, I stayed and carved me temples deep in the mountain's heart, Wide-domed and vast and silent, meet for the God I knew, With shrines that were shadowed and solemn and altars of richest hue; And out of my ceaseless striving I wrought a victor's hymn, Flung up to the stars in greeting from my far track deep and dim. For the earth was put behind me; I reckoned no more with them That come or go at her bidding, and cling to her garment's hem. Apart in my rock-hewn pathway, where the great cliffs shut me in, The storm-swept clouds were my brethren, and the stars were my kind and kin. Tireless, alone, unstaying, I went as one who goes On some high and strong adventure that only his own heart knows. Tireless, alone, unstaying, I went in my chosen road— I trafficked with no man's burden-I bent me to no man's load. On my tawny, sinuous shoulders no salt-gray ships swung in; I washed no feet of cities, like a slave whipped out and in; My will was the law of my moving in the land that my strife had made As a man in the house he has builded, master and unafraid. O ye that would hedge and bind me-remembering whence I came! I, that was, and was mighty, ere your race had breath or name! Play with your dreams in the sunshine-delve and toil and plot Yet I keep the way of my will to the sea, when ye and your race are not! Sharlot M. Hall [1870 SANTA BARBARA BETWEEN the mountains and the sea, A valley stretches fair and free Beneath the blue of heaven's dome. At rest in that fair valley lies Saint Barbara, the beauteous maid; Smile down upon her charms displayed. The sunlit mountains o'er her shed Enfolded in that soothing calm, The earth seems sweet, and heaven near; Francis Fisher Browne [1843-1913] |