The cataract’s catapult shakes the crag
Where the dead pine stands like the antlered stag.
One broad billow it boldly hurls;
And, shocked to its centre, the water whirls
Wild into madness of foam, and springs
Forward in chaos of frantic wrath;—
Ever upsoaring on misty wings,
White with the torment that whelms its path.
Cataract, bounding so fierce and free!
Sternness, not beauty, is fittest for thee!
Not where the Saranac nightingale weaves
Webs of soft song to the red of the west
Should the grand roar of thy anthem arise!
But where the shriek of the black eagle cleaves
Wildly the gorge from some pinnacle-crest,
Where a weird darkness haunts ever the skies!
Not where the summer day glitters in splendor,
Or, sweet and tender, the moon lights the dome!
But where the swift burning zigzag of lightning
Darts crimson brightening, to kindle thy foam!
Not where the deer drinks at dawn from the dingle
Where richly mingle the dark and the bright!
But where the wolf, from his cliff-cavern prowling,
Fills with wild howling the storm of the night!
Not where blue violets nod over the emerald sod;
Not where the golden-rod, vase-like, outspreads;
But where the cedar dark lifts its rough, seamy bark,
Where scarce a sunny spark sunny joy sheds.
Fierce bounding cataract! thus should it be!
Sternness and gloom, not grace, beauty, for thee!
MY CANOE.
You may boast of the haughty three-decker
That darkens the deep with her sail,
And the shocks of whose thunder majestical
Deaden the might of the gale!
How she crushes the billows beneath her,
The glory and pride of her crew!
But give me my light, little bubble,
My light, little, tight-built canoe!
Her curved frame is wrought of the fir-tree
And birch bark, the hue of the sun.
As over the carry we trudge along
Lizard-like, both seem as one.
Though buoyant as air, she is steady
When the tempest comes bellowing through;—
How she shoots, as the lake roars and whitens,
My faithful, tried, speedful canoe!
How she steals on the deer in his grazing!
And creeps to the trout in his sleep!
She vies with the pine-tree’s soft melody;
Wakening the lute of the deep.
When winter blears bleakly the forest,
And the water binds gray to its blue,
Safe and sound in her covert I leave her,
Till spring calls again my canoe.
