Earth, sea and sky, in richest robes arrayed, Wide spreads the glorious panorama round, Charming the gazer’s eye. O’er wind-swept height, Villa, and spire, and ocean’s glorious blue Floats the mild, westering sun. Fast by our side Frowns Fort Knyphausen, whence, in olden time, The whiskered Hessian, bought with British gold, Aimed at my country’s heart. Wild cedars wrap Its ruined base, stretching their arras dark O’er mound and mouldering bastion. With what grace New Jersey’s shores expand. Hillock and grove, Hamlet and town, and lithe promontory, Engird this islet, as a mother clasps Some beauteous daughter. Still, opposing straits, With their strong line of indentations, mar The entire embrace. Broad spreads the billowy bay, Forever peopled by the gliding sail, From the slight speck where the rude fisher toils, To forms that, like a mountain, tread the wave, Or those that, moved by latent fires, compel The awe-struck flood. Lo! from his northern home, The bold, unswerving Hudson. He hath burst The barrier of his palisades, to look On this strange scene of beauty, and to swell With lordly tribute what he scans with pride. Behold the peerless city, lifting high Its hallowed spires, and fringed with bristling masts, In whose strong breast beat half a million hearts, Instinct with hurrying life. The gray-haired sires Remember well, how the dank waters crept Where now, in queenly pomp, her court she holds. Next gleams that Isle, whose long-drawn line of coast Is loved by Ceres. On its western heights Towereth a busy mart, and ’neath its wing, One, whose pure domes are wrapped in sacred shade, Silent, yet populous. Through its still gates Pass on the unreturning denizens. Oh, Greenwood! loveliest spot for last repose, When the stern pilgrimage of life is o’er, Even thy dim outline through the haze is dear. Onward, by Coney Island’s silvery reef, To where, between its lowly valves of sand, Opes the Highway of Nations. Through it flows The commerce of the world. The Mother Realm Sends on its tides her countless embassies; Bright France invokes the potency of steam To wing her message; from his ice-clad pines The Scandinavian, the grave, turbaned Turk, The Greek mercurial, even the hermit-sons Of sage Confucius, like the sea-bird, spread Fleet pinions toward this city of the west, That like a money-changer for the earth Sits ’neath her temple-dome. Yon ocean-gate, With telegraphic touch, doth chronicle The rushing tide of sea-worn emigrants, Who reach the land that gives the stranger bread, Perchance a grave. And he who ventureth forth, The willing prisoner of some white-winged ship, To seek Hygeia o’er the wave, or test What spells do linger round those classic climes That woke his boyhood’s dream, fails not his heart