Friday, July 20, 2012

Poetry Friday: The Lordly Hudson

"Driver, what stream it is?" I asked, well knowing
it was our lordly Hudson hardly flowing.
"It is our lordly Hudson hardly flowing," 
he said, "under the green-grown cliffs."

Be still, heart! no one needs your passionate 
suffrage to select this glory--
this is our lordly Hudson hardly flowing
under the green-grown cliffs.


"Driver! has this a peer in Europe or the East?"
"No no!" He said. Home! Home!
Be quiet, heart! This is our lordly Hudson
and has no peer in Europe or the East,


this is our lordly Hudson hardly flowing
under the green-grown cliffs
and has no peer in Europe or the East.
Be quiet, heart! home! home! 


-- Paul Goodman

Above: Hudson River Looking South From West Point (Robert Walter Weir, c. 1865)  


More Poetry Friday at A Teaching Life.

2 comments:

Tara @ A Teaching Life said...

The mighty Hudson...we live near it and I so enjoy its great beauty.

Pentimento said...

For years I lived in Washington Heights and Inwood in New York, and could always see the river and the Palisades . . . as the poem says, it has no peer in Europe or the East.