The Glen

Here Nature's nice adjusted tool

Hath cut a chasm; and each pool

Reflects a narrow, rocky room

Where sun-born flowers seldom bloom,

But where the ledging, level shelves

Betray the dance hall of the elves.

And overhead the tasseled trees

Frown from the wall, and with each breeze

Awake the solemn avenue,

But hide from sight the upward view,

When with a hundred harps they sing

To Boreas their mighty king.

Here Echo dwells in lonely mood,

And answers to the dying wood;

Unsuited to a varying rhyme

She hath no voice for tuneful Time

Content to speak as she hath heard

The lyric wind, the singing bird.

Here these same falls awoke the glen

Long, long before the march of men;

Long, long before yon broken soil

Brought forth the fruit of human toil

And here these falls will dance and play

When feeling man has passed away.

Sing little Falls; and echo Glen,

Till silent are the songs of men

And they that dwell upon the earth

Have disappeared as at thy birth

And senseless Rock — if think ye can,

Think ye — how short the life of man!