{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/a-ballad-of-claremont-hill",
 "title": "A Ballad of Claremont Hill",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Henry van Dyke Jr.",
 "poet_slug": "henry-van-dyke-jr",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 96,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1920,
  "venue": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1920)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1920 collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume gathers work published from 1897 onward, and which earlier book or magazine printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/henry-van-dyke-jr_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16229",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16134",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10679",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3525",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9372",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29314",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43094",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/buildersotherpoe00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/toilingoffelixan00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/musicotherpoems0000henr_c7v6",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsnowfirstcol00vanduoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/songsoutofdoors0000vand",
   "https://archive.org/details/thyseaisgreatour00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/chosenpoems0000vand"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 48,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 72,
  "max_indent": 4
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The roar of the city is low,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Muffled by new-fallen snow,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And the sign of the wintry moon is small and round and still.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will you come with me to-night,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "To see a pleasant sight",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Away on the river-side, at the edge of Claremont Hill?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“And what shall we see there,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "But streets that are new and bare,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And many a desolate place that the city is coming to fill;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a soldier’s tomb of stone,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And a few trees standing alone⁠—",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Will you walk for that through the cold, to the edge of Claremont Hill?”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But there’s more than that for me,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "In the place that I fain would see:",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "There’s a glimpse of the grace that helps us all to bear life’s ill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A touch of the vital breath",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "That keeps the world from death,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "A flower that never fades, on the edge of Claremont Hill.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For just where the road swings round,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "In a narrow strip of ground,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Where a group of forest trees are lingering fondly still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There’s a grave of the olden time,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "When the garden bloomed in its prime,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And the children laughed and sang on the edge of Claremont Hill.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The marble is pure and white,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And even in this dim light,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "You may read the simple words that are written there if you will;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You may hear a father tell",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the child he loved so well,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "A hundred years ago, on the edge of Claremont Hill.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The tide of the city has rolled",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Across that bower of old,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And blotted out the beds of the rose and the daffodil;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the little playmate sleeps,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And the shrine of love still keeps",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "A record of happy days, on the edge of Claremont Hill.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The river is pouring down",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "To the crowded, careless town,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the intricate wheels of trade are grinding on like a mill;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the clamorous noise and strife",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the hurrying waves of life",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Flow soft by this haven of peace on the edge of Claremont Hill.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And after all, my friend,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "When the tale of our years shall end,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Be it long or short, or lowly or great, as God may will,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What better praise could we hear,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Than this of the child so dear:",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "You have made my life more sweet, on the edge of Claremont Hill?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}