“That year our Equinoctial came along Ere the snow left us. Under mountain pines White drifts lay frozen like the dead, and down Through many a gorge the bristling hemlocks crossed Their spears above the ice-enfettered brooks; But the pent river wailed, through prison walls, For freedom and the time to rend its chains. At last it came: five days a drenching rain Flooded the country; snow-drifts fell away; The brooks grew rivers, and the river here— A ravenous, angry torrent—tore up banks, And overflowed the meadows, league on league. Great cakes of ice, four-square, with mounds of hay, Fence-rails, and scattered drift-wood, and huge beams From broken dams above us, mill-wheel ties, Smooth lumber, and the torn-up trunks of trees, Swept downward, strewing all the land about. Sometimes the flood surrounded, unawares, Stray cattle, or a flock of timorous sheep, And bore them with it, struggling, till the ice Beat shape and being from them. You know how These freshets scour our valleys. So it raged A night and day; but when the day grew night The storm fell off; lastly, the sun went down Quite clear of clouds, and ere he came again The flood began to lower. “Through the rise We men had been at work, like water-sprites, Lending a helping hand to cottagers Along the lowlands. Now, at early morn, The banks were sentry-lined with thrifty swains, Who hauled great stores of drift-wood up the slope. But toward the bridge our village maidens soon Came flocking, thick as swallows after storms, When, with light wing, they skim the happy fields And greet the sunshine. Danger mostly gone, They watched the thunderous passage of the flood Between the abutments, while the upper stream, Far as they saw, lay like a seething strait, From hill to hill. Below, with gradual fall Through narrower channels, all was clash and clang And inarticulate tumult. Through the grove Yonder, our picnic-ground, the driving tide Struck a new channel, and the craggy ice Scored down its saplings. Following with the rest Came George and Lucy, not three honeymoons Made man and wife, and happier than a pair Of cooing ring-doves in the early June.