Salmon River

Per’aps you never heered uv it, thet silv’ry stream uv mine,

Which blinks all day in a drowsy way while lilies bloom an’ shine;

Wall, ‘tain’t in all joggerfrys, it’s some too small I s’pose.

It’s down here in Connettycut where wooden nutmegs grows.

It wiggles frum amongst the hills fur up beyond the town,

Then laughs an’ groans o’er rocks an’ stones an’ rushes madly down,

Tell by an’ by it stretches out to meet the ebb an’ flow,

Then marches back an’ for’ads like them guardin’ soldiers go.

Upon the sunny Western slope my boyhood homestead stan’s,

A tangled mess uv loveliness, the toil uv lovin’ han’s.

An frum the summit of the hill is spread before my eyes

A gorgeous spectacle uv land an’ water parrerdise.

I know jes’ where the fishes live an’ where the lilies grow,

An' how the birds talk lovin’ words an’ where the mus’rats go;

I know where rests the eagle bald, the hawk an’ fisher king,

An’ where to fin’ new wintergreen an’ where the wild grapes swing.

An’ on the fern strewed bank I set an’ watch the mirrored skies,

Each great white boat uv cloudlan’ float before my raptured eyes;

O, Shakespeare never loved his stream no better’n I love mine,

Which blinks all day in a drowsy way while lilies bloom an’ shine.

June 15, ‘93

Pub. in Conn. Valley Ad.