By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Thou hast taught me, Silent River! / Many a lesson, deep and long; / Thou hast been a generous giver; / I can give thee but a song.’ In ‘To the River Charles’, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-82), who is best known as the author of Hiawatha, praises the Charles river in Massachusetts.
‘To the River Charles’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
River! that in silence windest
Through the meadows, bright and free,
Till at length thy rest thou findest
In the bosom of the sea!
Four long years of mingled feeling,
Half in rest, and half in strife,
I have seen thy waters stealing
Onward, like the stream of life.