"Amid Inspiring Scenes" by H.P. Lovecraft (1917)

    AMID INSPIRING SCENES.

        (Near Greenwich, N.Y.)

Written for The Troy Times.

            Prologue.

            BY H. P. L.

                I.

The western sun, whose warm, rubescent rays

Touch the green slope at close of summer days,

A thoughtful bard reveals, whose polish'd flights

Spring from the scene on Dillon's pleasant heights.

An ancient boulder is the poet's seat,

A verdant vista fronts the blest retreat;

From distant banks there comes th' elusive gleam

That speaks the Hudson's silent, stately stream.

Here, ere the birth of man, a granite train

In speechless splendor rul'd the rising main;

In later days an Indian horde decreed

The varying fortunes of the fragrant mead.

Here Dutchmen trod, till Albion's stronger sway

Carv'd out the nation that we know to-day;

'T was here th' insurgent swain his King defied,

And rural rebels broke Burgoyne's bold pride.

Such is the scene, with shades historic rife,

That Hoag, in numbers, gives eternal life.

Lovecraft, H. P. "Amid Inspiring Scenes (Near Greenwich, N.Y.)." Troy Times. October 11, 1917: 10 col 3.

The second line was altered for 1923's The Poetical Works of Jonathan E. Hoag, where it reads "Touch the green slope with soul-awak'ning blaze,"

The image of the poem is cropped from a scan by http://www.fultonhistory.com