| |
| I STOOD one morning in summer, | |
| On the rude peak opposite | |
| Where over the rocky Foyers came down | |
| The cataract foaming white. | |
| |
| No sigh in the air above me; | 5 |
| No song in the woods around; | |
| A deathlike silence, broken alone | |
| By the hollow and deep-mouthed sound | |
| |
| Of water forever falling, | |
| And boiling and seething below; | 10 |
| Now lashing the crags in its furious ire, | |
| Now laving them in its flow. | |
| |
| No change in its deep diapason, | |
| No pause in its passionate dole, | |
| Plaintive and awful, it found and woke | 15 |
| An echo within my soul! | |
| |
| Grand in its eloquent beauty, | |
| Great in its infinite might, | |
| It left its rocky home for my heart, | |
| Overflowing it quite! | 20 |
| |
| Its splendor flooded my spirit, | |
| And, though hundreds of miles away, | |
| As plain as I saw it that summer morn, | |
| I can behold it to-day; | |
| |
| Can lie in the night-time and listen | 25 |
| To the splash and the dash of the tide, | |
| And can see the boiling caldron smoke | |
| Down the cavern yawning wide! | |
| |
| For all that we witness of beauty, | |
| All grandeur melting us most, | 30 |
| Passes into eternal possession, | |
And can nevermore be lost!
END OF VOL. I. | |
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