Hear what the gray-haired woodmen tell
Of this wild stream, and its rocky dell:
’Twas hither a youth of dreamy mood,
A hundred winters ago,
Had wandered over the mighty wood
When the panther’s track was fresh on the snow;
And keen were the winds that came to stir
The long dark boughs of the hemlock-fir.
Too gentle of mien he seemed, and fair,
For a child of those rugged steeps;