WITH sword and Bible, brood and dame, Across the seas from Denmark came Stout Jonas Bronck. He roved among The wooded vales of Ah-qua-hung. "Good sooth! on every hand," quoth he, "Are pleasant lands and fair to see; But which were best to plow and till And meetest both for manse and mill?" "Bronck! Bronck! Bronck!" Called the frogs from the reeds of the river; "Bronck! Bronck! Bronck!" From the marshes and pools of the stream. "Here let your journeyings cease; Blest of the Bounteous Giver, Ours is the Valley of Peace, Here is the home of your dream." "Oho!" laughed Jonas Bronck; "I ween These pop-eyed elves in bottle-green Do call my name to show the spot Predestined! -- Here I cast my lot!" So there he reared his dwelling-place And built a mill, with wheel and race. And even now, beneath the hill When summer nights are fair and still: "Bronck! Bronck! Bronck!" Rise the cadenced batrachian numbers; "Bronck! Bronck! Bronck!" Chant a myriad chorister gnomes; "High on the shadowy crest Under the hemlock he slumbers. Here is the region of rest; Come to our Valley of Homes!" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ALNWICK CASTLE by FITZ-GREENE HALLECK ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF CLAPHAM ACADEMY by THOMAS HOOD EPICOENE; OR, THE SILENT WOMAN: FREEDOM IN DRESS by BEN JONSON BALL'S BLUFF; A REVERIE by HERMAN MELVILLE WHAT THE BIRDS SAID by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER THE WORLD AND THE QUIETEST by MATTHEW ARNOLD A REPLY TO AN IMITATION OF THE SECOND ODE OF HORACE by RICHARD BENTLEY |