Far in sunset's mellow glory, far in daybreak's rosy bloom,
Fring'd by ocean's stormy surges, belted in by woods of gloom,
Stretch thy sandy, rocky borders, smile thy shores in hill and plain;
Flower-embroidered, ocean-girdled, green, fair shores of Maine!
Rivers of surpassing beauty from thy hemlock uplands flow;
Androscoggin and Penobscot, Saco chilled with mountain snow.
These from many a darkling ravine, as o'er mossy rocks they leap,
Sparkling, bear their ice-cold tribute to the surges of the deep,
Bays are thine as heaven transparent, starr'd and gem'd with countless isles;
Quoddy with its emerald inlets, Casco with its dimpled smiles.
O'er them swift the coasting schooners, stately ships their wings expand,
While the smoke-flag of the steamer waves its cloudy, vapory streamer,
Sailing o'er the frothy billow for some European land.
Moosehead Lake in girdling forest spreads afar its azure breast,
Lonely, solitary, silent, slumbering in a drowsy rest;
Silent, save when o'er the waters, fring'd with pine tree and with fir,
Roars the thrashing winter tempest, or the summer breezes stir.
Years ago, in native Maine land, sought I the deep forest shades,
Wandering far, a musing student, in your bowery arcades,
Shadowy woods of classic Brunswick! how reposeful to recline
Underneath the sombre hemlocks, or the towering, plumy pine!
College friends were there—dear Longfellow, with the matchless poet's lyre;
Prentice, in the ofter years so famous for his oratorio fire.
Noble forests full of transport to the ardent sportsman's heart,
With their pigeon-flocks and partridge flitting thro' each bushy haunt.
There we view'd the Androscoggin flowing past its verdant shore,
Lingering long by wood and meadow the fair borders to explore;
View'd the crystal currents flowing, dashing, foamy to the strand;
View'd the shining fishes darting, tempting spoil for angler's hand;
View'd the silvery sturgeon leaping, flashing o'er the river's brim,
While the air was vocal ever with the tuneful songbird's hymn!
"I will build me a camp by a cool mountain spring,
Where the trout play at eve and the wood-thrushes sing;
I will roof it with bark; and my snug sylvan house
Shall be sweet with the fragrance of evergreen boughs."
—Forest Runes.
Isaac McLellan, the poet and hunter, was friends with the poets George Dennison Prentice and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. They too wrote many poems about places and poems about nature.