| |
| ALONE with Nature, when her passionate mood | |
| Deepens and deepens, till from shadowy wood | |
| And sombre shore the blended voices sound | |
| Of five infuriate torrents, wanly crowned | |
| With such pale-misted foam as that which starts | 5 |
| To whitening lips from frenzied human hearts! | |
| |
| Echo repeats the thunderous roll and boom | |
| Of these vexed waters through the foliaged gloom | |
| So wildly, in their grand, reverberant swell, | |
| Borne from dim hillside to rock-bounded dell, | 10 |
| That oft the tumult seems | |
| The vast, fantastic dissonance of dreams,— | |
| A roar of adverse elements torn and riven | |
| In gaunt recesses of some billowy hell,— | |
| But sending ever through the tremulous air | 15 |
| Defiance, laden with august despair, | |
| Up to the calm and pitiful face of heaven! | |
| |
| From ledge to ledge the impetuous current sweeps | |
| Forever tortured, tameless, unsubdued, | |
| Amid the darkly humid solitude; | 20 |
| Through waste and turbulent deeps | |
| It cleaves a terrible pathway, overrun | |
| Only by doubtful flickerings of the sun, | |
| To meet with swift cross-eddies, whirlpools set | |
| On verges of some measureless abyss; | 25 |
| Above the stir and fret, | |
| The hollow lion’s roar, or serpent-hiss | |
| Of whose unceasing conflict waged below | |
| The gorges of the giant precipice, | |
| Shines the mild splendor of a heavenly bow! | 30 |
| |
| But blinded to the rainbow’s tender light, | |
| Soft as the eyes of Mercy bent on Might, | |
| Still with dark vapors all around it furled, | |
| The demon-spirit of this watery world, | |
| Through many a maddened curve and stormy throe, | 35 |
| Speeds to its last tumultuous overflow,— | |
| When downward hurled from wildering shock to shock, | |
| Its wild heart breaks upon the outmost rock | |
| That guards the empire of this rule of wrath: | |
| |
| Henceforth, beyond the shattered cataract’s path, | 40 |
| The tempered spirit of a gentler guide | |
| Enters, methinks, the unperturbèd tide,— | |
| Its current sparkling in the blest release | |
| From wasting passion, glides through shores of peace; | |
| O’er brightened spaces and clear confluent calms | 45 |
| Float the hale breathings of near meadow balms; | |
| And still by silent cove and silvery reach | |
| The murmurous wavelets pass, | |
| Lip the coy tendrils of the delicate grass, | |
| And tranquil hour by hour | 50 |
| Uplift a crystal glass, | |
| Wherein each lithe narcissus flower | |
| May mark its slender frame and beauteous face | |
| Mirrored in softly visionary grace, | |
| And still, by fairy bight and shelving beach | 55 |
| The fair waves whisper, low as leaves in June— | |
| (Small gossips lisping in their woodland bower), | |
| And still, the ever-lessening tide | |
| Lapses, as glides some once imperious life | |
| From haughty summits of demoniac pride, | 60 |
| Hatred, and vengeful strife | |
| Down through Time’s twilight-valleys purified, | |
| Yearning alone to keep | |
| A long predestined tryst with Night and Sleep, | |
| Beneath the dew-soft kisses of the moon! | 65 |
| |
