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| IMPETUOUS Torrent! Nature piled | |
| Thy rocks amid the sylvan wild; | |
| With flower and shrub their crags she graced, | |
| And through them thy dark pathway traced; | |
| Then bade thee with resistless force | 5 |
| Pursue thy mad, tumultuous course, | |
| Plunging from slippery steep to steep | |
| Till lost in the profounder deep,— | |
| While ’mid the rush of waters round, | |
| Eternal thunders shake the ground! | 10 |
| |
| Impetuous Torrent! Time, perhaps, | |
| For centuries hath mark’d thy lapse; | |
| Yet has that ruthless spoiler fear’d | |
| To mar the work which nature rear’d. | |
| Still in rude grandeur tower thy rocks, | 15 |
| Still all restraint thy current mocks, | |
| In verdant pride still wave thy trees, | |
| Sway’d ever by the varying breeze; | |
| And the dark cliffs, where wild flowers cling, | |
| And where the bee flies murmuring, | 20 |
| In matchless beauty robed still, | |
| Aye sets at nought the painter’s skill. | |
| And here upon thy margent green, | |
| The Indian hunter once was seen, | |
| Gazing on thee in thoughtful mood, | 25 |
| Or bounding swift, as he pursued | |
| Panther or deer across the glade, | |
| Nor reck’d the coil thy waters made. | |
| Child of the Forest! thou art fled, | |
| Thy joys, thy pastimes, all are sped; | 30 |
| The antler’d herd are far away, | |
| The panther is no more thy prey, | |
| Nor more the timorous Echo wakes, | |
| Startled as when thy war-whoop breaks: | |
| And yet in Fancy’s view still near, | 35 |
| Thou brightly art depicted here. | |
| The rock that spurns the rush of waves, | |
| Is thy stern soul, that danger braves; | |
| Amid the flood’s incessant roar | |
| Thy dreaded voice I hear once more; | 40 |
| And as I mark its maddening strife, | |
| I think o’er all thy stormy life: | |
| While through the spray that falls in showers | |
| Upon the trees, the shrubs, the flowers, | |
| That wild, bright heaven, so dear to thee, | 45 |
| In yon ethereal brede I see. | |
| |
| Impetuous Torrent! other times | |
| And other men from distant climes, | |
| Have now arrived; and thou despoil’d | |
| Of all thy charms, thy proud waves soil’d | 50 |
| By busy art, shalt be a theme | |
| Fit only for a poet’s dream. | |
| Yet should the forest shade no more | |
| The banks o’er which it waved before, | |
| And all thy lovelier features too | 55 |
| Vanish for ages from the view,— | |
| Still through the mournful waste shalt thou | |
| Pursue thy rapturous course as now: | |
| And when the race that here bear sway | |
| Are in oblivion swept away, | 60 |
| Thou shalt resume thy pristine reign— | |
| And, deck’d in beauty, once again, | |
| Shalt the brown hunter’s heart rejoice, | |
| And wake the forest with thy voice. | |
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