Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE DELAWARE by THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH

First Line: MY MOTHER, THE CLOUD, CAST ME DOWN TO THE GROUND
Last Line: YET FLOWING AND FLOWING.
Subject(s): DELAWARE (RIVER);
My mother, the cloud, cast me down to the ground,
And thence through the sand-soil a pathway I found,
And broke from the rock at the foot of the hill
In a fountain that trickled and swelled to a rill.
I gathered my brothers from hill-side and steep,
And eagerly hurried my way to the deep --
Sauntering slowly through low-lying meadows,
Sleeping in nooks beneath willow-tree shadows,
Tossing the blades of the o'erhanging grasses,
Gliding, meandering, strolling through valleys
Where dallies the wind with the flowers as it passes,
And flowing and flowing.

I swallow the brooks that descend from the hills,
I widen from tribute of fountains and rills
Who to join me come out from the nooks where they creep,
And the cloven ravines where they frolic and leap,
While together we dash against rocks in our way,
Or in eddies and whirlpools incessantly play.
Mine are the button-woods mottled and high,
In whose hollows the bears and the catamounts lie;
And mine are the reed and the flag and the lily,
And mine are the aster and golden-rod drooping
And stooping o'er water so placid and stilly,
Yet flowing and flowing.

Through the hills and beneath the green arches that grow
By limbs interlacing from grey trunks below,
I hurry and struggle and foam and complain,
Till I get to the kiss of the sunlight again.
Then I rest in dark pools in an emerald sleep,
Till I gather the force and the strength for a leap,
In a torrent of crystal and beryl and snow
From the green edge above to the white foam below;
Then over the rocks in my pathway I run,
Hissing and roaring and leaping and dashing,
And flashing a myriad of gems to the sun,
And flowing and flowing.

Down through the hills and through valleys that glow
With the sun from above and the green from below,
On by the cities that lie at my side,
Growing deeper and wider, I quietly glide
Past where the Schuylkill pays tribute to me,
Till I reach in my journey the fathomless sea.
There where the ships from the North and the South,
And the East and the West, with their keels vex my mouth,
I mingle my waters with those of the main,
Bury my flood in the flood of the ocean,
Whose motion repels me again and again,
Yet flowing and flowing.



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