The Ledyard Bridge
I am the Ledyard Bridge. The times have passed me by And tomorrow I go to mingle with the waters That have flowed beneath my timbers since long ere The century was born. But now with the swift approach Of autumn dusk I summon ghosts, and all this night they pass Before me in a last review.
Ghosts of the new year When the river lies frozen and still, and smoke From chimneys puffs up straight and white against the sky. Sleigh bells jingle in the frost, and grooved ski runners Whisper to the snow as Dartmouth and her joyous guests Make merry. At night the bursting bombs of Carnival Roll thunder down the valley, and rockets trail their fire Against the northern sky.
The days lengthen but the cold grows stronger yet And snow swirls down the frozen Connecticut And piles in drifts against my piers. Spring seems far away Save when a lone black crow from the pine cliffs That edge the river caws his complaint at an unrelenting sky.
The sun wheels higher And the water runs in the blaze of the yellow noons of March. A scent comes with the crisping dusk, and I feel Those wild nights when the south wind first begins to blow And all is winter .... yet deep within the earth something stirs. There comes the beat of the warm spring rain on my shingles And streams from my eaves spatter into the seething flood below. The Connecticut breaks its bonds, and ice cakes grind And rear and split against the wedge-like faces Of my piers, as a vast flow moves between walls of pine Down toward the distant sea. Then come the logs To rib the river, and there rises to me the scent Of bruised spruce in the icy water.
The flood passes- Honeycombed and dirty ice cakes drip and dwindle in the sun, The air is filled with the chorus of birds, along the littered Banks beneath me the willows sprout green, and at dusk From the halls of Dartmouth come echoes of a Maytime song.
June twilight brings the hum of honev-laden bees. Through the night and past the long white dawn Commencement throngs are dancing. The moon rides high Above Vermont, then fades to ashes in the west And I feel the morning wind of the Connecticut blowing.
Midsummer comes with its sunsets And the damp breath of the river rises beneath me While my shingles bake from the heat of the blazing west. The August haze hangs over hill and stream, A yellow leaf from an elm flutters down to the still water And a red moon comes up in the dark and shines Till black clouds tumble over it, pushed by a rising wind From the west. Thunder rumbles in the night, and beneath a sky Crossed with lightning crouch hay-filled barns in dread.
The storm passes— A clear dawn breaks with mist trailing the river, And I hear the sound of lazy drops that hang Then loose their hold on my floor beams and flashing down Ring in the quiet water. A lone blue heron is flying south Between walls of pine and flaming maple on the river banks, His slow wings mirrored in the silent stream.
September nights are throbbing to the insects' murmur And day brings tumult of returning youth to Dartmouth. I mark the faces one by one, and as they seek
The unforgotten shadows of my pungent way, their shouts And greetings from my rafters ring.
Indian summer is here And down the valley Mount Ascutney beckons through the haze. Between white frosts that flee the sun, a warm wind Whispers of a wistful summer loath to go, and after sunset Come the merry shouts of children dancing hand in hand In the incense-laden smoke of burning piles of leaves That flame like altars in a pagan dusk.
Autumn days grow short And from the plains of Hanover I hear the cheers That speed departing football teams and welcome victors home. The dark brings gleaming lights in small-paned windows, Thin ice is forming on the river shore, and here and there A brown and tardy leaf sails through the chill air.
And now in middle afternoon of late December The glow of a pale low-circling sun fades behind the frozen hills Of Norwich, and stars fanned by the north wind burn all night To light the way for winter dawn which long delays in doubt But comes at last to say that all my ghosts are gone.
