In time-long solitudes,
Where dark, old mountains pierced the silent air,
Bright rivers roamed, and stretched untraversed woods,
Thou joy’dst to hope that these were changeless there.
Lo! as the ages passed,
Thou found’st them struck with alteration dire,
The streams new-channeled, forests earthward cast,
The crumbling mountains scathed with storm and fire.
Gone but a few short hours,
Beauty and bloom beguiled thy wanderings,