| |
| I WANDERED through the ancient wood | |
| That crowns the cataract isle. | |
| I heard the roaring of the flood | |
| And saw its wild, fierce smile. | |
| |
| Through tall tree-tops the sunshine flecked | 5 |
| The huge trunks and the ground, | |
| And the pomp of fullest summer decked | |
| The island all around. | |
| |
| And winding paths led all along | |
| Where friends and lovers strayed, | 10 |
| And voices rose with laugh and song | |
| From sheltered nooks of shade. | |
| |
| Through opening forest vistas whirled | |
| The rapids’ foamy flash, | |
| As they boiled along and plunged and swirled, | 15 |
| And neared the last long dash. | |
| |
| I crept to the island’s outer verge, | |
| Where the grand, broad river fell,— | |
| Fell sheer down mid foam and surge | |
| In a white and blinding hell. | 20 |
| |
| The steady rainbow gayly shone | |
| Above the precipice, | |
| And the deep low tone of a thunder groan | |
| Rolled up from the drear abyss. | |
| |
| And all the day sprang up the spray | 25 |
| Where the broad white sheets were poured, | |
| And fell around in showery play, | |
| Or upward curled and soared. | |
| |
| And all the night those sheets of white | |
| Gleamed through the spectral mist, | 30 |
| When o’er the isle the broad moonlight | |
| The wintry foam-flakes kissed. | |
| |
| Mirrored within my dreamy thought, | |
| I see it, feel it all,— | |
| That island with sweet visions fraught, | 35 |
| That awful waterfall. | |
| |
| With sunflecked trees, and birds and flowers, | |
| The Isle of Life is fair; | |
| But one deep voice thrills through its hours, | |
| One spectral form is there,— | 40 |
| |
| A power no mortal can resist, | |
| Rolling forever on,— | |
| A floating cloud, a shadowy mist, | |
| Eternal undertone. | |
| |
| And through the sunny vistas gleam | 45 |
| The fate, the solemn smile. | |
| Life is Niagara’s rushing stream; | |
| Its dreams—that peaceful isle! | |
| |
