Contented river! In thy dreamy realm -
The cloudy willow and the plumy elm...

Thou has grown human laboring with men
At wheel and spindle; sorrow thou dost ken...

Thou beautiful! From every dreamy hill
What eye but wanders with thee at thy will,
Imagining thy silver course unseen
Convoyed by two attendant streams of green.

Contented river! And yet over-shy
To mask thy beauty from the eager eye;
Hast thou a thought to hide from field and town?
In some deep current of the sunlit brown
Art thou disquieted - yet still uncontent
With praise from thy Homeric bard, who lent
The world the placidness thou gavest him?
Thee Bryant loved when life was at its brim.

Ah! There's a restive ripple, and the swift
Red leaves - September's firstlings -faster drift;

Wouldst thou away!
I also of much resting have a fear;
Let me thy companion be
By fall and shallow to the adventurous sea!