Dark-Rolling Connecticut Poem by Thomas Cogswell Upham

Oh, tell me no more of the blisses prevailing
In the tapestried halls of the noble and great,
Oh, tell me no more of the joys never failing,
That are deem'd at the feet of the wealthy to wait.

For dearer than riches or power are the mountains,
The hills and the vales to remembrance allied,
The murmur of winds and the rushing of fountains,
That haste to Connecticut's dark-rolling tide.

Dark-rolling Connecticut! Often recalling
The days and the years that I spent on thy shore,
I start at thy tears, as, unconsciously falling,
They tell me those days shall be present no more.

'Twas summer. In brightness the wild flowers were shining,
And loud sung the beautiful birds in the trees;--
In the heat of the noon, in their shadows reclining,
I watch'd thy broad waters that curled to the breeze.

And when the cold winter with wild stormy weather,
Round the hearths of thy homes, at the closing of day,
Collected thy sons and thy daughters together,
How pleasantly pass'd the long evenings away.

Remembrance the joy of those moments shall cherish,
Though quickly they faded, though long they have past,
Nor e'er from the depths of my heart shall they perish,
As long as a throb in that bosom shall last.

And I think, when the moment shall come to depart,
'Twould soften its anguish, my head could I pillow,
As life, like a vision, shall fade from my heart,
By the side of Connecticut's dark-rolling billow.