Coosa River

A REVERIE.

Roll on, oh gentle Coosa,
Thou art dearer far to me
Than all the other waters
That flow into the sea.
From thy early fountain source,
'Mid the Georgia mountains grand,
Down through old Alabama
To the ocean's pearly strand,
Thou art peerless in thy beauty,
Thou art ever fair and bright,
And everywhere I view thee
There is gladness in the sight.

What memories, sweet and tender,
Of my by-gone happy days,
Now fills my heart with rapture
Whene'er on thee I gaze.
Those happy days of boyhood.
That can bless me never more,
Were spent with boon companions
In sporting on thy shore;
And, oh, what royal pleasure
'Twas to i)lunge into thy tide
And, like the wild aquatic birds,
On thy placid bosom glide.

Ah, well do I remember
One blissful summer night,
When moon and stars of Heaven
Made thy crystal waters bright,
Of floating down thy current.
Borne onward by the tide.
In sweetest little shallop,
With fair Inez by my side;
When I told her of my love.
As I clasped her to my breast.
And, in answer to my wooing,
Heard her love for me confessed.

Then again upon thy borders
On a lovely day in May,
With flowers blooming 'round us
And the birds all singing gay,
How I led off in the dance.
With a merry, happy train.
Whirling in a giddy waltz
With blithesome Kitty Dane,
The fairest little fairy.
To my bosom firmly pressed.
And felt her heart responding
To the throbbing in my breast.

There 'neath the beech and maples
That shade thy grassy shore.
Near the village of Coloma,
In the halcyon days of yore,
Where I was want to wander
To view thy lovely sheen,
Hand in hand with pretty Lizzie,
The little village queen,
And with her there to angle.
With our hooks oft baited not,
All forgetful of the fishing.
So contented with our lot.

Then drifting, gently drifting,
Adown thy placid stream,
Borne onward to Aurora
In my retrospective dream,
I meet once more the loved ones,
Both my friends and kindred dear,
And view once more the prospect
That was wont my heart to cheer,
And see once more around me
Those winsome girls and boys
Which made that village on thy shore
The Eden of my joys.

But roll on, noble river,
My retrospect is vain,
Whilst thou shalt flow forever,
I shall never feel again
The rapture and the ecstacy,
And charms without alloy,
That blest me in those sunny days
When I was yet a boy.
Sporting on thy bosom,
Or romping on thy shore,
With precious friends and loved ones,
In those happy days of yore.