Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/338

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DOWN THE SUSQUEHANNA.
301

window of the train all the way to Harrisburg. We saw the marriage of the lovely Juniata with the Susquehanna, recalling the exquisite poem of my friend, John Brown:—

"Oh! never such a sight:
He sweeping round the valley's bend,
While she, on maiden tip-toe rising,
Feasts loving glances on the friend
She has so lonesome been abiding;
He, helpless, seeks the fatal shore,
Charm-blinded by her eyes, dark-flashing
Within the portals of the door
Through which her slender form is passing:
He opens wide his giant arms,
The young and lordly Susquehanna;
She nestles there her virgin charms,
The soft-voiced, lovely Juniata;
There in the bright sunlight!"

And so, good-by for another season to the sweet waters, the dancing boat, and the biceps-building paddle. There is no sport or exercise so complete as canoeing a river, for it embraces all sports,—the excitement of rapid water, the delicious plunge, the long swim down stream, the fishing and shooting, the free camping out at night, and the endless beauty of the panoramic scene. Canoe-clubs may meet and vote and compete and sail regatta races on the lakes. But the true canoeist knows not sail nor prize, but searches with the paddle all the bends and rapids and shadowed reaches of our peerless American rivers.