Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.

New England: Concord, the River

Two Rivers

By Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

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 love and 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.