I hear the death-stroke and the gurgling groans,
The heart-deep invocation of the winds,

The shout of multitudes in outer courts,
The chorus-music of the waterfall!

I see the sombre walls, the bowing roof,
And feel my spirit overpressed with awe!
Delay no longer, O my soul, or die!
Back to the sunlight's sympathy I rush,
And breathe more gentle airs on earth again.

Happy for me that I may thus escape,
Since to another came the penal strokes
Of angry winds, who, when their temple-halls
Were entered by his sacrilegious foot,
Claimed, unappeased, the forfeit of his life.

Still down thy banks, O River of the Fall!
I roam in dream-like ecstasy enthralled;
I heed no danger, yield to no repulse,
No hardship dread, and feel no weariness,

So rapturous my thoughts, so strong the spell
Of thy wild beauty o'er my soul, until

Oblivious of my own identity,

I seem a part of Nature's edifice,

Built round these laboring floods to screen their toil, Here standing awed amid her central halls.

All these are thy hereditary homes,

That meet the view as those of feudal lands,

Where kings and castles guard the tenant-soil,

The soil round which the deep-dug moat extends, E'en as thy channels stretch between their banks, Beyond whose wide gap with its bridge withdrawn, The strong portcullis of most ponderous weight, Falls with the treadings of thy cataract!

What towering form erects its figure here,
To check the footsteps of inquiring man,
As if it were a sentry at his post,
To guard with faithfulness the narrow pass?
It is the Rock of Manitou, the Pinnacle 20
On which the gloomy Spirit of the Fall,
Sits brooding o'er the tide below, that shows
His fearful frowns reflected in its wave,
Or feels the movements of his busy hand
Searching its depths and torturing its course,
Till its full currents reel in conscious pain!
How high the Water-God his altar rears
With jagged summits from a liquid base!

How
green the moss that decks its time-worn crown,
Like youthful forms that cluster round old age!
From yonder cliff impending o'er the stream
With shadowy fringes of the evergreen,

This massive pile, like an inverted cone,
Seems hurled in other years with giant hand,
Upon the kindred masses dashed below!
Here on thy height, thou offspring of the cliff!
Do I usurp the throne of Manitou,

Yet tremulously bend to gaze intent

Upon th' imprisoned waters, struggling hard
Within their rock-bound area for escape,

Like chafing lions caged by iron bars,
And lashing, in ungovernable rage,

Their heated sides with love for liberty!

On through the straitened gorge they wildly rush,
And maddened with repulse return again,
But to renew their strength for victory,

And make fresh onsets to conclude the siege!
Anon they fling their foaming arms on high,
And hurl their javelin tides to win the pass;
Again they sound retreat in columns close,
Shrinking away, as if in fear, but yet
Returning still invincible, with new

Assailing bands that to their rescue rush;

They speed like worried steeds that scour the plain,
Champing their bits and foaming at the mouth.
Ho! now they triumph with terrific shout,

And break each barrier that obstructs their march,
Leaping from rock to rock, from bank to bank,
And dashing up against the tall crag's base,
As if to scale its unascended walls.

The channel's bed seems now to ope below
And leave a thousand outlets for its tides;
For round and round, the rapid vortices,
Like the gyrations swift of eagle-wings,
Whirl in the wild delirium of their joy,
As if intoxicate with bright success,
Bearing away from human view below,

For long unreckoned hours, the shattered spoils,
Hurled into their embrace from yonder flood.
Now, summoned in united ranks of strength,
The waters meet and form the whirlpool's shape,
That seems its own destroyer, turning round
T'ingulf its life, in madness unrestrained,
And then its own creator, from its maw
Ejected, till away it shoots in light,

A wild artillery of floods, that lose

Their name and likeness in Ontario's wave !21

Once more, my steps retraced, before thy front
I stand an awe-struck listener to thy words,
Great Primate of the floods, whose breathings die
All hushed before the pantings of thy heart,
That gushes out with Nature's loudest voice!
What lessons from her book may we receive?
Loud from thy pulpit most magnificent,
Thou solemn Preacher, pour with voiceful tongue,
Into the ear of man thy homilies!

Oh! tell how beamed the early-born of light
With freshest hues upon thy crystal lips!

How shone its beauties o'er thine amber brow,
And how the imaged stars leaped down thy sides,
And sported in the sparkling waves below!
Tell how th' Almighty from his hand profuse,
Scattered the leaves of incense-breathing flowers,
Where first that hand had cleaved the rock in twain,
And left them on its ancient-looking sides,

Clinging in love, as clingeth youth to age!
Tell thou, when Nature's harp was newly strung,
And sounded in yon firmament afar,

How to their choral stations rushed the stars

At morn's first waking, in their joy to sing
Their hymn of life, and make their footsteps light
Accompany in dance their shout and song,

Their movement seeming naught but music's self!
Tell how from fountains inexhaustible

Thy spring-tides leaped to life at God's great voice,
And held its echoes in their silent depths,

Till rolled their thunderings o'er thy rocky heights!
Say, spoke thou not in loudest tones of joy,
To see green life born on thy stony banks?
When first the day-star climbed th' ethereal steep,
Didst thou not glass his light reflecting wide
The glory of his crest on every height?
Aye, thou hast heralded his advent morn,
And caught his beauty penciled on thy mist
In the blent colors of the rainbow's arch.

When sang the morning stars their first-born hymn,
Thy deep-toned music mingled with their voice!
Tell me, thou Waterfall, were not their strains
Like thine, a cataract of song, that came
Enrapturing to thine ear, as if from Heaven
Celestial bands had stooped and made the air
Itself harmonious with unwritten notes?

Didst thou not cease thy flow, and breathless hush
The dull discordance of thy fluid tongue,