Across a sandy bar, and sounded in
  Among the channels, to a goodly bay
  Where all the navies of the world could ride? 
  A fertile island that the redmen called
  Manhattan, lay above the bay:  the land
  Around was bountiful and friendly fair. 
  But never land was fair enough to hold
  The seaman from the calling of the sea. 
  And so we bore to westward of the isle,
  Along a mighty inlet, where the tide
  Was troubled by a downward-flowing flood
  That seemed to come from far away,—­perhaps
  From some mysterious gulf of Tartary? 
  Inland we held our course; by palisades
  Of naked rock; by rolling hills adorned
  With forests rich in timber for great ships;
  Through narrows where the mountains shut us in
  With frowning cliffs that seemed to bar the stream;
  And then through open reaches where the banks
  Sloped to the water gently, with their fields
  Of corn and lentils smiling in the sun. 
  Ten days we voyaged through that placid land,
  Until we came to shoals, and sent a boat
  Upstream to find,—­what I already knew,—­
  We travelled on a river, not a strait.

  But what a river!  God has never poured
  A stream more royal through a land more rich. 
  Even now I see it flowing in my dream,
  While coming ages people it with men
  Of manhood equal to the river’s pride. 
  I see the wigwams of the redmen changed
  To ample houses, and the tiny plots
  Of maize and green tobacco broadened out
  To prosperous farms, that spread o’er hill and dale
  The many-coloured mantle of their crops. 
  I see the terraced vineyard on the slope
  Where now the fox-grape loops its tangled vine,
  And cattle feeding where the red deer roam,
  And wild-bees gathered into busy hives
  To store the silver comb with golden sweet;
  And all the promised land begins to flow
  With milk and honey.  Stately manors rise
  Along the banks, and castles top the hills,
  And little villages grow populous with trade,
  Until the river runs as proudly as the Rhine,—­
  The thread that links a hundred towns and towers! 
  Now looking deeper in my dream, I see
  A mighty city covering the isle
  They call Manhattan, equal in her state
  To all the older capitals of earth,—­
  The gateway city of a golden world,—­
  A city girt with masts, and crowned with spires,
  And swarming with a million busy men,
  While to her open door across the bay
  The ships of all the nations flock like doves. 
  My name will be remembered there, the world
  Will say, “This river and this isle were found
  By Henry Hudson, on his way to seek
  The Northwest Passage.” 
                          Yes, I seek it still,—­
  My great adventure and my guiding star! 
  For look ye, friends, our voyage is not done;
  We hold by hope as long as life endures!