II 
ON THE BANKS OF THE DELAWARE 
N abonny day of early advent of the spring 
in the State of New Jersey, I was asked 
did I wish to visit Washington’s Crossing 
of the Delaware. I replied that whoever crossed 
the Delaware I wanted to visit that noble river. 
The river was significance enough. What needed 
anybody more? Few things are so engaging to 
the imagination any way, as a river. The un- 
hurried or hurried current, the breadth, the un- 
certain depth which always has the seeming 
of deep depths, the strong, majestic, forward, 
always forward, simple tenacity of purpose in 
going where it knows not, but must go, and fears 
not what banks or shoals it meets, but onward 
as certainly, though less swiftly, than a stream 
of stars along the far spaces where the night 
is lost in its own blackness. What a brave fear- 
lessness a river is and how adept it is in hearing 
the silent, voiceless voices of the far-off calling! 
I stand beside a river and am afraid. Down and 
on, on and down, nor fretting nor wearying nor 
angering, but only hungering, hungering forever 
for the sea it has not seen and depths it has 
not sounded. Wearying for the realm of loss 
11 
