“And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad! Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, Forever shattered, and the same forever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury and your joy, Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? And who commanded (and the silence came,) Here let the billows stiffen and have rest? “Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain’s brow, Adown enormous ravines slope amain— Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once, amidst their maddest plunge! Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? GOD! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, GOD! GOD! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice! Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, GOD! “Ye living flowers, that skirt the eternal frost! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle’s nest! Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the elements! Utter forth GOD! and fill the hills with praise! “Thou, too, hoar Mount, with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet, the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Into the depths of clouds, that vail thy breast; Thou too again, stupendous mountain! thou, That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low In adoration, upward from thy base Slow traveling with dim eyes suffused with tears, Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud, To rise before me,—Rise, oh ever rise! Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth! Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills, Thou dread embassador from Earth to Heaven, Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God!