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The Atlantic Monthly/Volume 1/Number 3/Two Rivers

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Featured in Vol 1., No.3 of The Atlantic Monthly. (January 1858)

412709The Atlantic Monthly — Two Rivers1858Ralph Waldo Emerson

TWO RIVERS.

Thy summer voice, Musketaquit,
Repeats the music of the rain;
But sweeter rivers pulsing flit
Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain.

Thou in thy narrow banks art pent:
The stream I love unbounded goes
Through flood and sea and firmament;
Through light, through life, it forward flows.

I see the inundation sweet,
I hear the spending of the stream
Through years, through men, through nature fleet,
Through passion, thought, through power and dream.

Musketaquit, a goblin strong,
Of shard and flint makes jewels gay;
They lose their grief who hear his song,
And where he winds is the day of day.

So forth and brighter fares my stream,—
Who drink it shall not thirst again;
No darkness stains its equal gleam,
And ages drop in it like rain.

This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

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