Yet we love it when the mist clouds
Hang over it like a pall;
No less when the hand of the Frost King
Holds it in icy thrall.

In all of its moods and changes
We joy in its billows salt,
With the deep strong love of a lover
Blinded to every fault.

Always its gleaming beauty
Raises our thoughts from the clod;
Up, up to the crystal river,
That flows from the Throne of God.

They pass on,--the generations,--
Thou stayest, while men depart;
They go with thy lovely changes
Shrined in each failing heart.

Beautiful old Bass River!
Girt round with murmuring trees;
Long wilt thou flow in Nobscussett.
And wander through Mattacheese.

ARETHUSA.

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