To The Bronx<br><br>I sat me down upon a green bank side,<br>Skirting the smooth edge of a gentle river,<br>Whose waters seemed unwillingly to glide,<br>Like parting friends, who linger while they sever;<br>Enforced to go, yet seeming still unready,<br>Backward they wind their way in many a wistful eddy.<br><br>And I did leave thy loveliness to stand<br>Again in the dull world of earthly blindness,<br>Pain'd with the pressure of unfriendly hands,<br>Sick of smooth looks, agued with icy kindness;<br>Left I for this thy shades, where none intrude,<br>To prison wandering thought and mar sweet solitude.<br><br>Yet I will look upon thy face again,<br>My own romantic Bronx, and it will be<br>A face more pleasant than the face of men.<br>Thy waves are old companions; I shall see<br>A well-remembered form in each old tree,<br>And hear a voice long loved in thy wild minstrelsy.<br><br>Joseph Rodman Drake.