You can't drive here, so enjoy the scenery. By the time you read the poem about here from years gone by, you could have walked here.
While resting on Mt. Hope’s green hillside,
Looking down in the valley below,
A train of reflections possessed me
On the present and time long ago.
From workshops the whistles were shrieking,
The laborers ceased their employ;
Men and children went wearily homeward,
Their well-deserved rest to enjoy.
There were boats on the narrow mock river,
Which man for convenience had made,
That wealth might flow into his coffers
Through this link of connection with trade.
The telegraph, like a long clothesline,
Stretched as far as my vision could reach,
Bearing tiding of every description
By means of mysterious speech.
The coal train, a black, trailing serpent,
Seemed winding its way in great length,
While the engine, another huge monster,
Snorted steam in the pride of his strength.
Then I turned me and looked upon Nature;
Her familiar face, as of yore,
Was still green on memory’s pages,
Alas, I could see it no more.
The hillsides are shorn of their forests,
Handsome dwellings adorn the plateau;
Whate’er was romantic or rustic,
There is naught of it left that I know.
(54)The old spring house where mineral water
To the ill gave promise of health,
Which is better by far than diamonds
Or mines of mineral wealth --
I remember, though long since it happened,
I remember, and now tell the tale,
That the spring house was guilty of selling
A drink that was not Adam’s ale.
The leisure of evenings and Sundays
To the lucrative business was given,
Yet to-day -- I am sorry to say it --
Men balance such profits ’gainst heaven.
But the wages of sin are accursed,
The actors are gone as a dream;
Suppressed was the death-giving water,
For the building was washed down the stream.
I remember the beech trees, whose branches,
Protecting us well with their shade,
Made a place of resort in my childhood,
Beneath them I often have played.
How we laid round the stones for a play-house,
And called it a palace so fine;
The greensward of earth was our carpet,
All flowered with bloom of wild thyme.
Adorned with our garland of daisies,
With bonnets and sashes of leaves,
Our tea-sets we made of the acorns,
Life brings us no pleasures like these.
The dates and the names of the gravers
Encircled the trees on their rind,
But the axe of the merciless woodman
Leaves no visitor’s record behind.
(55)The changes I see in the valley
Recall the fancies that roam,
New scenes in the vision before me
Make me feel like a stranger at home.
And there is that city so silent,
Its inhabitants now not a few,
White tablets above them so spectral
Record names of the dear ones I knew.
Even there in life’s morning, in rambles,
How often I’ve culled the wild flowers,
Gathered nuts in their season, and berries,
And sat in the shade of the bowers.
Noon and evening have followed the morning
For life’s emblematic of day,
And we all to that city are hastening,
Short at longest on earth is our stay.
And when, like our kindred and neighbors,
Our labors in this world shall cease,
God grant that for us there’s a mansion
In the glorious City of Peace.