The rains have ceas’d—the struggling glare Of sunset lights the misty air, The fierce wind sweeps the myriad throng Of broken ragged clouds along, From the rough saw-mill, where hath rung Through all the hours, its grating tongue, The raftsman sallies, as the gray Of evening tells the flight of day: And slowly seeks with loitering stride, His cabin by the river-side. As twilight darkens into night, Still dash the waters in their flight, Still the ice-fragments, thick and fast, Shoot like the clouds before the blast. Beyond—the sinuous channel wends Through a deep narrow gorge, and bends With curve so sharp, the drilling ice, Hurl’d by the flood’s tremendous might, Piles the opposing precipice, And every fragment swells the height; Hour after hour uprears the wall, Until a barrier huge and tall Breasts the wild waves that vain upswell To overwhelm the obstacle: They bathe the alder on the verge, The leaning hemlock now they merge, The stately elm is dwindling low Within the deep engulfing flow, Till curb’d thus in its headlong flight, With its accumulated might, The river turning on its track, Rolls its wide-spreading volumes back. Slumbers the raftsman—through his dream Distorted visions wildly stream, Now in the wood his axe he swings, And now his sawmill’s jarring rings; Now his huge raft is shooting swift Cochecton’s white tumultuous rift, Now floats it on the ebon lap Of the grim shadow’d Water Gap, And now it’s tossing on the swells Fierce dashing down the slope of Wells, The rapids crash upon his ear, The deep sounds roll more loud and near, They fill his dream—he starts—he wakes! The moonlight through the casement falls, Ha! the wild sight that on him breaks, The floods sweep round his cabin-walls, Beneath their bounding thundering shocks, The frail log fabric groans and rocks; Crash, crash! the ice-bolts round it shiver, The walls like blast-swept branches quiver, His wife is clinging to his breast, The child within his arms is prest, He staggers through the chilly flood That numbs his limbs, and checks his blood, On, on, he strives—the waters lave Higher his form with every wave, They steep his breast, on each side dash The splinter’d ice with thundering crash A fragment strikes him—ha! he reels, That shock in every nerve he feels, Faster, bold raftsman, speed thy way, The waves roar round thee for their prey, Thy cabin totters—sinks—the flood Rolls its mad surges where it stood: Before thy straining sight, the hill Sleeps in the moonlight, bright and still, Falter not, falter not, struggle on, That goal of safety may be won, Heavily droops thy wife with fear, Thy boy’s shrill shriekings fill thine ear;