THE TWO STREAMS
by: Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1809-1894)
- EHOLD the
rocky wall
- That down its sloping sides
- Pours the swift rain-drops, blending as they fall,
- In rushing river-tides!
-
- Yon stream, whose sources run
- Turned by a pebble's edge,
- Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun
- Through the cleft mountain-ledge.
-
- The slender rill had strayed,
- But for the slanting stone,
- To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid
- Of foam-flecked Oregon.
-
- So from the heights of Will
- Life's parting stream descends,
- And, as a moment turns its slender rill,
- Each widening torrent bends,--
-
- From the same cradle's side,
- From the same mother's knee,--
- One to long darkness and the frozen tide,
- One to the Peaceful Sea!
"The Two Streams" is reprinted
from The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Oliver
Wendell Holmes. New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1892. |
MORE POEMS BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES |
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