Kimball Brook Valley In Newport.
By Bela Chapin

Down a green valley from the western hills
    The Kimball brook pursues its merry way;
From cool clear springs, and tributary rills,
    It takes its source, then comes to open day.
Through vernal pastures, strewn with bolders gray,
    Through grassy fields, and ferny woodland shade,
Hidden at times, then sparkling in the ray
    Of solar light, its onward course is made,
    Its course o'er many a fall and beautiful cascade.

Scenes of my early days!  I love them still;
    No other places are so dear to me.
Each grassy valley and  and each rocky hill,
    Sweet fields and pastures all so fair to see,
    And brooks and brooklets flowing cheerily,
And groves of maple holding high their arms,
    And woods that clothe each hill's declivity,
Houses and barns, and cultivated farms,
These deep in memory dwel, with undiminished charms.

The good man, Ives, and his most worthy wife
    Dwelt in this valley, by the brook and road;
In happiness he spent his latter life.
    His farm was small and humble his abode,
    But on his land much labor he bestowed.
He dug out rocks and cut huge stumps away,
    And well he was repaid with many a load
Of wheat, and corn, potatoes, beans, and hay,
Which he laid by in store against a needful day.

This man had much of wealth to call his own,
    Ere to this vale he came at length to dwell;
But wealth had taken wings and far had flown,
    And poverty at last to him befell.
    What thoughts were his I cannot surely tell,
Or what deep anguish he did suffer then,
    At loss of worldly things he loved so well.
But resignation, kind, came to him when
He felt it no disgrace to work like farmer men.

Upon the southern border of this vale
    My father's homestead was, my birthplace there.
The memory of that home will never fail
    While I shall live and breathe earth's vital air.
    The scenes I loved so well, how bright, how fair
Is their remembrance in my mind for aye.
    Nor can I in my woven verse forbear
To tell objects known in early day,
Well known to me in years forever passed away.

Adown the vale a fertile mead is laid,
    Through which the clear brook flows meandering.
There lofty trees afford a grateful shade;
    There lovely flowers, the sweet wild flowers spring,
    And bobolinks and other glad birds sing
Their untaught lays, through all the summer day.
    In that loved spot tall grass, a needful thing,
Profusely grows in all its green array,
Which the stout farmer mows and dries for foodful hay.

Beneath an elm, with branches bending down,
    In this green valley, in a shady nook,
The Kimball dwelling stood, antique and brown.
    All things around a quietude partook,
    And wore a pleasant and a tidy look.
The stately trees reared wide their branches tall,
    And near the house swift flowed the merry brook
Over the stones in many a waterfall;
And sweet red roses bloomed beside the orchard wall.

Beside the road, below the sandy hill,
    Where birch tree boughs supplied refreshing shade,
In years agone there stood a busy mill,
Where many rakes for raking hay were made.
    the brook, well harnessed, gave its needful aid,
And swiftly round compelled the wheels to go;
    And there the schoolboys oftentimes delayed,
To see the foaming water outward flow,
That turned with mighty strength the water-wheel below.

That  mill is gone forever to decay;
    Its whir and rattle all are heard no more.
Unhindered now the stream pursues its way
    Beneath the willows, the worn pebbles o'er,
    Fringed with the grasses as in days of yore,
And life is like a stream that to the sea
    Flows ever on.  We pass from off the shore
Of time and reach, at last, eternity.
Such is the lot of all, our certain destiny.

Here ends the lyric of the Kimball vale,
    A rural, unpremeditated lay.
In retrospective oft I do not fail,
    When eighty years of life are flown away,
    To meet, as 'twere, dear friends of early day;
Gone from the region of that valley fair,
    Now with the great majority are they,
No more to sojourn in this world of care,
But in the better land abide forever there.

Claremont, June, 1909

The Granite Monthly
June, 1909
Vol. XLI, No. 6 - New Series, Vol. 4, No. 6