Poems (Allen)/A Potomac Picture

by Elizabeth Chase Allen

A POTOMAC PICTURE.

LITTLE shallop floating slow along
  The fair Potomac's tide,
The oarsman, pausing for a simple song,
  Sung softly at his side;—

A quaint, old-fashioned love-song, such as stirs
  All tender souls, and thrills
To sudden youth the hearts of grandmothers,
  Among New England's hills.

Great boughs of laurel garlanding the boat,
  Won tom the bloomy store
Of forests, lying purple and remote
  Along the eastern shore.

Far off, the city and the growing dome
  Of the fair Capitol,—
White and ethereal as the feathery foam
  Fringing the oar-blade's tail.

A fort looks down in silence from the hill,
  Holding its fiery breath,
As loath to mar the peace so sweet and still
  By any thought of death.

The blossomed fruit-trees drape the frowning walls,
  Disputing all their gloom,
And on the pyramids of cannon-balls,
  Drops the white chestnut-bloom.

The mounted guns, all threatening and grim,
  Speak not their thunderous words,—
And in and out among their muzzles skim,
  Unseared, the meadow birds.

In the horizon waits one patient star,
  A sphere of silver white,
While the full moon, above the hill-tops far,
  Slow reddens into sight;

Building across the waves, with golden light,
  A wondrous "road to Spain,"—
But ah! the Alhambra's courts would tempt to-night
  Our charméd eyes in vain!