The Old Covered Bridge

O the old covered bridge! sixty years it has stood
Like a mother to nourish the town's babyhood
With the currents of life that unceasingly flowed
Thro' its tunnel along the old National Road,
And its moss-covered walls still triumphantly loom,
With their history hidden in cobwebs and gloom,
Like a grim silent sphinx with the future in view,
Or Colossus that spans the old times and the new.

O the old covered bridge how the years whirl around
As I see it once more, and my life is unwound,
With its burdens and sorrows laid by, and I seem
To be standing again in the sweet happy dream
Of my childhood, and watching with innocent glee
The birds and the waters that talked there with me,
While the trees were live giants and I but a midge,
As I lolled on the banks by the old covered bridge.

O the old covered bridge! how I wondered and feared
As far, far through its narrow foot-passage I peered,
And fancied it led to the end of the world
Or some dim distant country in mystery whirled;
And I climbed to the rail and gazed dizzily down
At the current with wrinkles of yellow and brown,
And I lingered till terror of dusk made me fly
And with tears bid the bridge and the river good-by.

O the old covered bridge! may it never decay;
May the march of the ages just wear it away,
For it marks the proud growth of a city in fame
And the third generation still finds it the same;
And if ever a food of the future uprears
To tear the old structure by force from its piers
May my spirit be with it and, perched on its ridge,
Sail away into space with the old covered bridge!