O Merrimack, strong Merrimack,
All other streams may faint and lack,
Exhale in clouds through dreary lands
Or sink forlorn in desert sands;
New Hampshire's hills and island-sea
Are sureties for thy constancy!
Pemigewasset leaps from the mountains
Where the huge Stone Face looms cold and gray;
Winnipesaukee fills at the fountains
Ossipee guards and Chocorua—
The sunny water that smiling lies
With its isles like a path to Paradise;
And where Kearsarge uplifts his shrine
They blend their deathless floods in thine.