Through idle mischief, or with heedless stroke;
A hundred cataracts, unknown before,
Rush down the mountain's side with fearful roar;
And as with foaming fury down they go,
Loose the firm rocks and thunder them below,
Blue lightnings from the dark cloud's bosom sprung,
Like serpents menacing with forked tongue,
While many a sturdy oak that stiffly braved
The threatening hurricane that round it raved,
Shivered beneath its bright resistless flash,
Came tumbling down amain with fearful crash.
Air, Earth, and Skies seemed now to try their power,
And struggle for the mastery of the hour;
Higher the waters rose, and blacker still,
And threatened soon the narrow vale to fill.
PLEASANT vale; bright fields that lie
On gentle slopes and knolls of green;
Steep mountains sharp against the sky;
Clear streams and tiny lakes between.
Cool bowery lanes 'mong happy hills;
Old groves that shade ancestral eaves;
Farms which the prosperous season fills
With flocks, and fruits, and golden sheaves.
A holy feeling soothes the air,
The woodlands stand in musings sweet,
It seems as if the heart of prayer
In all this charméd valley beat.
The hills are voiced with sacred speech,
The meadows bloom with sweet desire,
From mountains kindred spirits reach
To clasp the glory streaming higher.
In every path I see the trace
Of feet that made the landscape dear;
In every flower I feel the grace
Of lives that purely blossomed here.
From my fount of shadowy glass,
I struggle along in hollow song
On my blind and caverned way.
Sharp, splintered crags ascend,
Wild firs above me bend,
And I leap and dash with many a flash
To find the welcome day.
The lean wolf laps my flow;
In my pointed pools below,
The grand gray eagle's tawny eye
Like lightning fires the gloom,
Not oft is the warbling bird
In my jagged cradle heard,
For I am the child of the savage and wild,
Not pet of the sun and bloom.
I smite, in headlong shocks,
Roots clutching the ragged rocks,
And the blocks of my sable basins
And the chasms my fury ploughs,
Where the raven, as o'er he flies,
Sees the frown of his deepest dyes,
As the murkiest pall of the forest
Is flung from the dungeon-boughs.
Old Whiteface cleaves apart
In dizziest heights his heart
For the roll of my rocky waters;
And I lighten and thunder through.
And sometimes I tame my will
To sing like the wren-like rill,
And I mirror the flower and bending bower,
And laugh in the open blue.
But sometimes the cataract-rain
Fills my breast with frantic disdain,
And my boiling deep shoots torrent-like,
Lashing and crashing past; -
Whole forests I tear in my wrath;
Whole hamlets I strew on my path,
Till my wild waves break upon the lake,
And I slumber in peace at last.
HE twilight on Ausable
By rock and river fell,
With tints of rose-veined marble
It glimmered through the dell.
Shadows on tree and river
In stately grandeur hung;
There Nature sings forever
What poets have not sung.
The dark rocks, proudly lifted,
Uprear their rugged form,
Like giants - nobly gifted
To breast the torrent's storm.
Dim mystery forever
Here chants a song sublime,
While onward rolls the river,
Unchangeable as time.
From soul to soul is spoken
What lips cannot impart;
And the silence is but broken
By the throbbing of the heart.
The evening sky in glory
Lights the massy, rifted wall,
And, with many a wondrous story,
Fancy paints the waterfall:
Of the savage freely roving
In a scene as wild as he;
Of the Indian maiden loving
With a spirit full of glee.
Yet though Indian maid and lover
Have forever passed away
We may dream their visions over,
And may love as well as they!
On the borders of the river,
We may whisper ere we part, Songs - whose music clings forever Round the memories of the heart.
We may catch an inspiration
From dark river, rock, and fall,
And a higher adoration
For the Spirit over all!
Oliver Wendell Withington.
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