Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DETROIT RIVER, by CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DETROIT RIVER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Thou brimming river, full, how full
Last Line: Love thee, remember thee, evermore.
Subject(s): Detroit River


Thou brimming river, full, how full
Thou sweepest by thy even banks!
E'en one drop more, thou must o'erflow
The velvet land, where plumed ranks
Of inland grains come calmly down
To the smooth edge, and dip their feet
Within thy still dark-flowing tide,
Where, almost brushed in passing, glide
The dark hulls of the freshwater fleet.

Sweep on, O river, past the green --
The indolent Canadian farms
With low thatched house and old-time mill
Stretch down to meet thy clasping arms;
The grey small churches lift on high
Their crosses, and the long watch keep
Over the deep-grassed churchyards where
'Mong sunken tombstones clustered there,
The old French habitans lie asleep.

Insouciant French! your fathers sailed
These Lakes as Kings; -- but now their claims
From Gaspe Bay to far La Pointe,
Live only in the Gallic names
They gave; -- sweet echoes from the past,
Chiming from cliff and strait and bay,
Mixed with the vowelled Indian tongue,
And fainter, fainter, fainter rung --
Till now forgotten -- dying away.

Sweep on, O river. Thou dost bind
The mighty Lakes with thy soft sheen
Of silver water; Huron's blue,
And dark superior, and the green
Of Michigan do come to thee,
And flow where thou dost say, thy shore
Doth feel their coolness hasting by, --
But haste not, river; -- stay where I
Love thee, remember thee, evermore.






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