Classic Poem

Light as a leaf on the lifting swell,
Balanced by touch of the spruce-wood blades,
Poised like a javelin, floats my shell
Under the frown of the Palisades.

Molded were they in volcanic fire,
Up from the bosom of Chaos hurled,
Battlement, pinnacle, column, spire
Carved by the Chisel that wrought the world.

Clear to their Dunsinane rampart sweep
Bough-bearing armies of rooted foes;
Bright in their chasms the cascades leap;
Over their rubble the fox-grape grows.

Long have they guarded the river's flow,
Summer and winter the ages through,
Watching the argosies come and go—
Go, like the Indian's frail canoe.

Proud in the heavens they seem to say,
Catching my feathering oarblade's gleam,
“What is yon waif of a passing day
Vexing the rill of our golden stream?”

Cliffs of the eons that woo the sky,
Furrowed with shadows of world-old thought,
Brood ye in pity on such as I? …
I shall be deathless when ye are naught!