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“Once more I stand, but now unknown, by sacred
Hudson's tide,
With unfamiliar scenes around, no friendly hand
to guide;
For in Albany, forsooth, they've been working
such a change
With their modern innovations that the place
looks very strange.
All the old lanes and pasture fields, with clover
tops so fair,
Are lost to sight, no fences left, no shady bouweries* there.
Old places once so very dear to these old eyes
of mine
Are scattered like the hoar-frost by the ruthless
hand of Time.
* * * *
Old things have changed so swiftly since last I
saw the town—
The honest old Dutch customs; and the stones
which marked the mile
Are lost in streets and alleys; and the roads, of
which the cows
Had traced the crooked outlines as they moved
about to browse,
Are laid in stones and pavements: the
degenerated race
Have begun with their ' improvements' to wipe
out the old Dutch place.
I would not care to live and see such altered
folks and ways,
Since half-doors swung wide open in those palmy
old Dutch days,
When streets were cleaned by private hand, and
all the city's light
Was furnished by the lanterns from each tenth
house hung in sight. * * * * I fain would take before I go a hasty bird's-eye
view
Of forms and places that I loved before all things
were new." * Farm-houses. |
Old Albany