BUT what to us are centuries dead,
And rolling years forever fled,
Compared with thee, O grand and fair
Vermont,—our goddess mother?
Strong with the strength of thy verdant hills,
Fresh with the freshness of mountain rills,
Pure as the breath of the fragrant pine,
Glad with the gladness of youth divine,
Serenely thou sittest throned to-day
Where the free winds that round thee play
Rejoice in thy wave of sun-bright hair,
O thou, our glorious mother!
Rejoice in thy beautiful strength and say,
Earth holds not such another!
Thou art not old with thy hundred years,
Nor worn with care, or toil, or tears,
But all the glow of the summer time
Is thine to-day in thy glorious prime!
Thy brow is fair as the winter snows,
With a stately calm in its still repose;
While the breath of the rose the wild bee sips,
Half mad with joy, cannot eclipse
The marvellous sweetness of thy lips;
And the deepest blue of the laughing skies
Hides in the depths of thy fearless eyes,
Gazing afar over land and sea
Wherever thy wandering children be!
Fold on fold,
Over thy form of grandest mould,
Floweth thy robe of forest green,
Now light, now dark, in its emerald sheen.
Its broidered hem is of wild-flowers rare,
With feathery fern-fronds light as air
Fringing its borders. In thy hair
Sprays of the pink arbutus twine,
And the curling rings of the wild grape-vine.
Thy girdle is woven of silver streams;
Its clasp with the opaline lustre gleams
Of a lake asleep in the sunset beams;
And, half concealing
And half revealing,
Floats over all a veil of mist
Pale tinted with rose and amethyst!
[Extract]