River of Life, oh! if thy waters were
As golden bright as from afar they seem
As thick with blessed islands, and as fair
As hope beholds them anchor'd in sweet dream;
If they were paved with gems of all delights
As lovers see them; I would sail with thee
Onward, for ever onward, day and night
And breathe in summer till I reach'd the sea.

Oh! I would lift my sail at break of day
And launching forward with a shout and song
Thro' shade of leaves and blossoms cleave my way,
And feast my heart with music all day long;
And when the purple and the gold of even
Flush'd the gray currents I would drop asleep
Watching with rapturous eyes the hues of Heaven
And their unnumber'd shadows in the deep.

But thy still places into whirlpools spin;
Thy free fair currents glittering in the sun
Change into shallows full of rocks within,
Or stilly into fatal cataracts run;
Thy shores lead into howling wildernesses
Thro' walks of rose, thy overshadowing bowers
Hide perilous caverns where the serpent hisses,
And dragons slumber underneath the flowers.

River of Life, lo! I have furl'd my sail
Under the twilight of these ancient trees,
I listen to the water's sleepless wail,
I fill mine ears with sighs that never cease,
If armed hearts come stronger out of Ill
The dust of conflict fills their eyes and ears;
Mine unaccustom'd heart will tremble still
With the old mirth and with the early tears.

In a lonely spot that was filled with leaves,
And the wild waste plants without scent or name,
Where never a mourner came,—
That was far from the ground where the false world grieves,
And far from the shade of the church’s eaves—
They buried the Poet with thoughts of shame,
And not as one who believes.

Then the tall grass flower with lolling head,
Who is king of all flowers that twine or creep
On graves where few come to weep,
To the briar, and bindweed, and vetch, he said,
"Lo, here is a grave of the lonely dead;
Let us go up and haste while his soul may sleep,
To make the fresh earth our bed."

Then the rootless briar and bindweed mean,
And the grovelling vetch, with the pale trefoil
That cumbers the fruitless soil,
Yea, the whole strange rout of the earth’s unclean
Went up to the grave that was fresh and green;
And together they wrought there so dense a coil
The grave was no longer seen.

But the tall mad flower whose head is crowned
With the long lax petals that fall and flap
Like the ears of a fool’s bell-cap,
He stood higher than all on the fameless mound;
And nodded his head to each passing sound,
Darting this way and that, as in sport to trap
Each laugh of the winds around.