But we who know thee, proudly point the hand
Where thy broad rivers roll serenely grand--
Where, in still beauty 'neath our northern sky,
Thy lordly lakes in solemn grandeur lie,--
Where old Niagara's awful voice has given
The flood's deep anthem to the ear of heaven
Through the long ages of the vanished past,
Through Summer's bloom, and Winter's angry blast--
Nature's proud utterance of unwearied song,
Now, as at first, majestic, solemn, strong,
And ne'er to fail, till the archangel's cry
Shall still the million tones of earth and sky,
And send the shout to ocean's farthest shore--
"Be hushed ye voices--time shall be no more!"
Few are the years that have sufficed to change
This whole broad land by transformation strange;
Once, far and wide, the unbroken forests spread
Their lonely wastes, mysterious and dread--
Forests, whose echoes never had been stirred
By the sweet music of an English word,--
Where only rang the red-browed hunter's yell,
And the wolfs howl thro' the dark, sunless dell.
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