The White-Hills of New Hampshire

William B. Tappan

I see ye towering--Genii of the North!
I see ye stand, the monuments of time,
Clad in the dread sublimity of years.
Well do I know ye by the frosty robe,
God's drapery, that wraps your giant forms.
 
Parents of freedom! on your hoary heights
The fearless eagle makes her eyry, there
Plants her domain, approachless to the foe.
The hardy yeoman vent'rously is seen
With patient labour toiling your ascent,
Invading solitudes, where fitful winds
Talk 'mid the pines,--he treads the dizzy cliff;
Thence, wondering, surveys the little world
Of forest, village, lake, that clothes your feet.
The sailor knows ye--nearing the rough coast,--
From the tall mast, his lonely weary watch,
Descries and greets ye as a long lost friend,
When your hoar summits glittering to the sun,
Seem to his gaze but fleecy summer clouds.
 
And what are works of man, the edifice,
The toil of ages?--what the aspiring dome?
Yea, what the vaunted mockers of old Time,
Egyptia's columns--what are they to these?
Works of God's finger! ye shall life your heads
Majestically, when the pride of man
Shall waste and crumble, yea, when Memphian plains
Are cumbered with the ruined pyramid.

Poetry Atlas has mapped New Hampshire in a lot of poems.


Main Location:

New Hampshire, USA

The White Mountains of New Hampshire

The poet William B Tappan