Great wonder of Nature ! thy thunders I hear ;
Thy rush of wild waters before me. appear!
A majesty awful doth compass the mind,
The might of Jehovah around me I find.
In thy deep dreadful chasms thick volumes of spray,
In dense moving clouds mount the ether away,
Till hung like a sheet on the front of the sky,
Are mists that thy waters have sent up on high.
In caverns of foam thy bright rainbows are born,
Where green rolling rapids whirl under with scorn ;
These walls, which thy torrents together have stayed,
The hand of Omnipotence boldly hath laid.
Wert thou poured here, O Torrent, to thunder sublime,
To echo through ages the waning of time ?
Or millions to teach, who thy precincts have trod,
To doubt not the might and the wisdom of God ?
Source: Mrs. O. M. Livingston. Poems. New York: Printed at The Riverside Press, and for sale by Hurd and Houghton, 1868.