Passing of Ledy Bridge

I

WINTER IS again upon the hills, Old Bridge, Choking the great valley of the Connecticut With frozen spume —Spume as white as long sea breakers —Spume cast up by strong unshackled winds Sweeping from ridges curved like scimitars Against the bitter sky of afternoon.

Deep, deep in tree or burrowed bank The chipmunk, the grey squirrel, the wily otter And all their furry brotherhood Lie warm, forgotten, undisturbed In nests of thistle-down and shredded moss.

Now, only the solitary wind, Old Bridge, Lonely and lost In a world of whiteness and of sleep Comes moaning through your cavernous arch.

Yet, for all the silence And the ice which grapples tightly at your knees, You feel the steady surge of hidden things —Of waters ever rushing, —Of branches rubbing lightly overhead, And, far off, of changing floes Whose hollow boom re-echoes eerily Along the valley floor.

II

You, WHO have watched so many winters pass And seen a thousand sunsets fade Across the Norwich hills, Tell us of the season's first faint turning. Tell us of the sweet awakening of spring.

You with your fingers deep within the earth Must know what makes each seedling tremble And shoot forth in ecstasy

—Why the maple's sap so freely runs Before the gods of winter half retreat —And why the dainty violet will grow In dangerous proximity to snow But no-

Immutable you stand and your own counsels keep.

For, many an evening have I leaned On your old balustrade, Watching the burst of flooded waters, Watching the ice divide, Watching the driftwood crash Against the grim unyielding granite far below,

And, lifting my eyes along the river banks, Seen the slow up-bending birches And the moist brown pasture lands Uncovered by the fast-receding snows —Yet heard no word.

III

OLD BRIDGE, the last harsh snows Have strained your great curved timbers Hewn by hand among New Hampshire's hills. No longer will the April rains or August sun Beat down upon your sheltered roof. No longer will the moss and trailing ivy grow Within the quiet shadow of your arch.

The mellowness of age will pass with you And, too, the dim remembrances Of men who westward treked Through Hanover and Norwich Town To build a nation in the wilderness —Gaunt New Englanders, Weary of their struggle with the rockribbed land, Eager to try their fortunes in the Middle States, Or, pushing further, Settle where the Rockies kneel upon the prairies Shaking jagged heads into the sky.

Perhaps their sons have come This very way And wondered at the quaint old-fashionedness of you!

Thus endlessly, endlessly the cycles of the seasons run And ancient landmarks vanish one by one: —The White Church is gone, —The Pine upon the ridge, And you, the last of all, Old Bridge, Twisted and torn loose By the slow rentless grinding of the years.

"The bridge with all its interests is safe. It is open and free. Let noVandal hand be raised to deface this noble structure or injure one fibreof its timbers. Palsied be the arm that shall aid in its demolition andspeechless be the tongue that would plead for its disfranchisement!"From the address of PROF. E. D. SANBORN at the dedication of Ledyard Bridge, 1859