Poem by William Cullen Bryant

To the River Arve

NOT from the sands or cloven rocks
  Thou rapid Arve! thy waters flow;
Nor earth within its bosom locks
  Thy dark, unfathomed wells below.
Thy springs are in the cloud, thy stream
  Begins to move and murmur first
Where ice-peaks feel the noonday beam,
  Or rain-storms on the glacier burst.

Born where the thunder and the blast,
  And morning’s earliest light are born,
Thou rushest swoln, and loud, and fast,
  By these low homes, as if in scorn:
Yet humbler springs yield purer waves;
  And brighter, glassier streams than thine,
Sent up from earth’s unlighted caves,
  With heaven’s own beam and image shine.

Yet stay! for here are flowers and trees;
  Warm rays on cottage roofs are here,
And laugh of girls, and hum of bees,—
  Here linger till thy waves are clear.
Thou heedest not, thou hastest on;
  From steep to steep thy torrent falls,
Till, mingling with the mighty Rhone,
  It rests beneath Geneva’s walls.

Rush on,—but were there one with me
  That loved me, I would light my hearth
Here, where with God’s own majesty
  Are touched the features of the earth.
By these old peaks, white, high, and vast,
  Still rising as the tempests beat,
Here would I dwell, and sleep, at last,
  Among the blossoms at their feet.

1. “Blessed Are They That Mourn”
2. The Hunter of the Prairies
3. A Scene on the Banks of the Hudson
4. Rizpah
5. William Tell

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