Oh! river, gently as a wayward child,
I saw thee’mid the moonlight hills at rest,
Capricious thing, with thine own beauty wild,
How did’st thou still the throbbings of thy breast!
Rude headlands were about thee, stooping round
As if amid the hills to hold thy stay;
But thou did’st hear the far-off ocean sound,
Inviting thee from hill and vale away,
To mingle thy deep waters with its own;
And, at that voice, thy steps did onward glide,
Onward from echoing hill and valley lone;
Like thine, oh, be my course -nor turned aside,
While listing to the soundings of a land,
That like the ocean call invites me to its strand.
(Elizabeth Oakes Smith)
More Poetry from Elizabeth Oakes Smith:
- The Sinless Child Part 6 (Elizabeth Oakes Smith Poems)
- The Sinless Child Part 4 (Elizabeth Oakes Smith Poems)
- The Sinless Child Part 5 (Elizabeth Oakes Smith Poems)
- The Sinless Child Part 2 (Elizabeth Oakes Smith Poems)
- The Sinless Child Part 3 (Elizabeth Oakes Smith Poems)
- The Acorn (Elizabeth Oakes Smith Poems)