The Ohio Falls by Madison Cawein — Read

/ Here on this jutting headland, where the trees / Spread a dusk carpet for the sun to cast / And count his golden guineas on, we'll stay; / For hence is the best prospect of the Falls, / Whose roar no more astounds the startled ear, / As when we bent and marked it from the bridge / Seething beneath and bounding like a steed -- / A tameless steed with mane of flying spray -- / Between the pillars rising sheer above. / But mark how soft its clamor now is grown, / Incessant rush like that of vernal groves / When, like some sweet surprise, a wand'ring wind, / Precursor of the coming rain, rides down / From a gray cloud and sets their leafy tongues / A-gabbing of the fresh, impending shower.

/ There runs the dam, and where its dark line cuts / The river's sheen, already you may see / The ripples glancing to the fervid sun, / As if the waves had couched a hundred spears / And tossed a hundred plumes of fleecy foam / In answer to the challenge of the Falls, / Blown on his bugle from the battlements / Of his subaqueous city's rocky walls. / And now you see their maddened coursers charge, / Hear wavy hoof-strokes on the jagged stones, / That pave the pathway of the current, beat, / While billowing they ride to ringing lists, / With shout and yell, and toss their hundred plumes, / And shock their riply spears in tournament / Upon the opposing billows' shining shields. / Now sinks a pennon, but 'tis raised again; / There falls or breaks a spear or sparkling sword; / A shattered helmet flies in flakes of foam / And on the frightened wind hisses away: / And o'er it all you hear the sound, the roar / Of waves that fall in onset or that strive.