Great wonder of Nature! thy thunders I hear;
Thy rush of wild waters before me appear!
A majesty awful doth compass the mind,
The might of Jehovah around me I find.
In thy deep dreadful chasms thick volumes of spray,
In dense moving clouds mount the ether away,
Till hung like a sheet on the front of the sky,
Are mists that thy waters have sent up on high.
In caverns of foam thy bright rainbows are born,
Where green rolling rapids whirl under with scorn;
These walls, which thy torrents together have stayed,
The hand of Omnipotence boldly hath laid.
Wert thou poured here, O Torrent, to thunder sublime,
To echo through ages the waning of time?
Or millions to teach, who thy precincts have trod,
To doubt not the night and the wisdom of God?
Wild, wild are emotions that rush through the mind--
The pulses of life scarce their channel can find;
Enough is thy awful imposing control
To palsy the sense and to shatter the soul.
But turn from thy brink to thy islet of green,
Where verdure of Nature like spring-time is seen;
Like Mercy it sits in the foam-dashing tide,
And smiling in beauty thy waters divide.
Here, here doth thy magic unburden the mind;
Here charms of the wild wood are sweetly combined;
New and gentler emotions are called into birth;
It seems like a paradise guarded from earth.
Enthroned in sublimity, grandeur, and awe,
Thou scene of great Nature, no pencil can draw;
Thy pæan of thunder, with time, has e'er told,
The glory of God in thy handiwork bold!
