growth a brook, a stream, a little 

 river, a river, a mighty flood that 

 rolled and ran from hills to plain to 

 meet a final doom so strange that only 

 the wise believe. Yes, I have seen it; 

 it is there to-day the river, the won- 

 derful river, that unabated flows, but 

 that never reaches the sea. 



I give you the story then as it came 

 to me, and yet I do not give it, for 

 theirs is a tongue unknown to script: 

 I give a dim translation; dim, but in 

 all ways respectful, reverencing the in- 

 domitable spirit of the mountaineer, 

 worshiping the mighty Beast that na- 

 ture built a monument of power, and 

 loving and worshiping the clash, the 

 awful strife heroic, at the close, when 

 these two met. 



