wellsteed
All must confess who view this wondrous scene,
That if God were not, this had never been;
His voice here thunders in the mighty flood,
And these rent rocks proclaim, their maker God.
I love the dullness of the Cataract’s roar,
And the wild grandeur of its craggy shore,
I love to look upon the gulf below,
Foaming and white like wildly-drifting snow;
I love to watch the cloud-like mists that rise,
To pay their weeping homage in the skies,
And when the blazing orb of day burns low,
I love to gaze upon the glorious bow,
And mark the beauties of that “bridge where time,
“Of light and darkness, forms an arch sublime,”
These wonders calm the passions of the mind,
And waken thoughts that leave the world behind.
I love to linger till the envious night,
Draws for her dark curtain o’er the gorgeous sight,
And when again the “balmy hour of rest,”
Returns, soft soother of the world distress’d,
The Cataract’s roar shall lull me to repose,
And slumber shut the door of mem’ry on my woes.
Source: Western Literary Messenger, July 1849. p232