76 THE FORESTERS 



The deqi loud roar our loudest voice deveured. 



High o'er the wat'ry uproar, silent seen, 

 Sailing sedate, in majesty serene, 

 Now 'midst the pillard spray sublimely lost, 

 And now, emerging, down the rapids tost, 

 Swept the gray eagles,_gazingcalm and slow, 

 On all the horrors of the gulf below ; 

 Intent, alone, to sate themselves with blood, 

 From the torn victims of the raging flood. 



AVhate'er the weather, or where'er the gale, 

 Here ceaseless haze and dying rains prevail ; 

 Down bend the boughs, with weight of moisture borne, 

 Each bush, each tree, the dazzling drops adorn ; 

 Save when the deep winter's fiercest rigors blow, 

 Then falls the whirling spray in silent snow ; 

 While the dew-drops to icicles are changed, 

 In glittering pendent parallels arranged. 

 Then, too, amid the Falls, stupendous rise 

 Bright icy pillars of prodigious size ! 

 As if some pile, immense, of Greece or Rome, 

 Where deep engulfed within their hideous womb. 



Drenched to the skin, our baggage dewn we throw, 

 p'ixed to descend into the gulf below, 

 Amid whose wreck, and from whose depth profound, 

 Some new resource for wonder might be found ; 

 Along the dreadful verge we cautious steered, 

 Till the tall ladder's tottering top appeared ; (50) 

 A tree's projecting root its weight sustains, 



