Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti

John Keble (1792–1866)

The Waterfall (from Lyra Innocentium)

GO where the waters fall,

Sheer from the mountain’s height—

Mark how a thousand streams in one,—

One in a thousand on they fare,

Now flashing to the sun,

Now still as beast in lair.

Now round the rock, now mounting o’er,

In lawless dance they win their way,

Still seeming more and more

To swell as we survey,

They rush and roar, they whirl and leap,

Not wilder drives the wintry storm.

Yet a strong law they keep,

Strange powers their course inform.

Even so the mighty skyborn stream

Its living waters from above,

All marred and broken seem,

No union and no love.

Yet in dim caves they softly blend

In dreams of mortals unespied:

One is their awful end,

One their unfailing Guide.