Poems (Trask)/Cohecho River

by Clara Augusta Jones Trask

COCHECHO RIVER.

A silver ribbon winding calm and slow
Across the meadows where the daisies grow,
'Tween steep high banks fringed with the feath'ry sedge,
Where elms and birches sweep the water's edge,
And the red sunbeams with a golden glint
Paint the faint ripples round the peppermint.

In the mild twilights of the summer days,
When hill and highland hide in purple haze,
A breath of music steals up faint and low,—
The gliding of the river, calm and slow,
O'er glittering pebbles just beyond the bridge,
Where the great eddy sweeps the Chestnut Ridge.

Down in the gorge below the rugged hill,
Half hid in shadow stands the brown old mill,
And just above the willows bend so low,
Beneath the wild clematis' blooms of snow,—
So very low they dip within the tide,
And with perpetual dew are glorified.

In autumn-time the loaded grapevine's scent
With thyme, and mint, and sedge is sweetly blent;
And where the forest stretches cool and green,
With belts of sunshine and of shade between,
The heavy air is full of smells of pine
Blending a subtle fragrance with the vine.

Oh, fair Cochecho! sweeping on thy way,
Past old farm-houses, mossy eaved and gray,
Make music for the factory's patient slave,
Flash hope and beauty from thy sparkling wave;
Gladden the lowlands,—linger 'mid the flowers,—
And mind me sometimes of lost summer hours.