Down those precipitous, black, jaggëd 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 amid 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-plain 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!