“Night-shadowed Rivers—lift your dusky hands And clap them harshly _with a sullen roar_! Ye thousand Pinnacles and Steeps deplore The glory that departs; above _you_ stands, _Ye_ Lakes with azure waves and snowy strands, A Power that utters forth his loud behest Till mountain, lake and river shall attest, The puissance of a Master’s _large commands_.” VIII. So spake the Spirit with a wide-cast look Of bounteous power and _cheerful_ majesty; As if he caught a sight of either sea And all the subject realm between: then shook His brandished arms; his stature scarce could brook Its confine; _swelling wide, it seemed to grow_ _As grows a cedar on a mountain’s brow_ By the mad air in ruffling breezes _took_! IX. The woods are deaf and will not be aroused— The mountains are asleep, they hear him not, Nor from deep-founded silence can be wrought, Tho’ herded bison on their steeps have browsed: Beneath their hanks in _darksome stillness_ housed The rivers loiter like a calm-bound sea; _In anchored nuptials to dumb apathy_ _Cliff, wilderness and solitude are spoused_. Let us endeavor to translate this gibberish, by way of ascertaining its import, if possible. Or, rather, let us state the stanzas, in substance. The spirit _lowers_, that is to say _grows angry_, and speaks. He calls upon the Wild Woods to tremble, and upon the Cataracts to sound their voices which have the tone of an organ. He addresses, then, _an_ Earthquake, or perhaps Earthquake in general, and requests it to _level flat_ all the Deep Crags which are bound by massy tenures in earth—a request, by the way, which any sensible Earthquake must have regarded as tautological, since it is difficult to level anything otherwise than _flat_:—Mr. Mathews, however, is no doubt the best judge of flatness in the abstract, and may have peculiar ideas respecting it. But to proceed with the Spirit. Turning to the Winds, he enjoins them to howl and break the peace that broods above this world and steadfastly eludes their power—the same peace that mocks a Dismay ’mid streams, rocks, et cetera. He now speaks to the night-shadowed Rivers, and commands them to lift their dusky hands, and clap them harshly _with a sullen roar_—and as _roaring_ with one’s _hands_ is not the easiest matter in the world, we can only conclude that the Rivers here reluctantly disobeyed the injunction. Nothing daunted, however, the Spirit, addressing a thousand Pinnacles and Steeps, desires them to deplore the glory that departs, or is departing—and we can almost fancy that we see the Pinnacles deploring it upon the spot. The Lakes—at least such of them as possess azure waves and snowy strands—then come in for their share of the oration. They are called upon to observe—to take notice—that above them stands no ordinary character—no Piankitank stump orator, or