Oh the wild wonder of the vast emotion
Of the perturbed wave,
That cries and wanders like the fearful ocean,
Seeking, with none to save!
In their wide agony the rapids roam,
A world of waves, an universe of pain!
The vexed, tumultous clamor of their foam
Crying to God with agonized refrain,
Where the sad rocks their quivering summits hide
In the loud anguish of the refluent tide.
Yet, with a willingness that leaps to sorrow
Swift run the ragged surges to the height,
And from their pain is born a pure delight—
The fear to-day, the snowy peace to-morrow!—
Cleaving like darts their swift and silvery way
With sudden gleams, and barbs of glittering spray,
They hurry to the brink, and swift are lost
In that stupendous leap, that infinite holocaust!
Oh Christ-like glory of the praying water
That leaps forever to its mystic death!
And from the anguish of that sobbing slaughter
Lifts the clear glory of the torrent's breath,
Where like a paean of rapturous victory calls
The solemn jubilation of the falls!
O alabastrine priest—thy splendor spraying
More lasting than the immemorial hills!
O monument of waves, O undecaying
While God's right hand thy flowing chalice fills!
Under the transient world's astonished eyes
Thou offerest abiding sacrifice!
Page:Dreams and Images.djvu/108
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