Here Nature's nice adjusted tool
Hath cut a chasm; and each pool
Reflects a narrow, rocky room
Where sun-born flowers seldom bloom,
But where the ledging, level shelves
Betray the dance hall of the elves.
And overhead the tasseled trees
Frown from the wall, and with each breeze
Awake the solemn avenue,
But hide from sight the upward view,
When with a hundred harps they sing
To Boreas their mighty king.
Here Echo dwells in lonely mood,
And answers to the dying wood;
Unsuited to a varying rhyme
She hath no voice for tuneful Time
Content to speak as she hath heard
The lyric wind, the singing bird.
Here these same falls awoke the glen
Long, long before the march of men;
Long, long before yon broken soil
Brought forth the fruit of human toil
And here these falls will dance and play
When feeling man has passed away.
Sing little Falls; and echo Glen,
Till silent are the songs of men
And they that dwell upon the earth
Have disappeared as at thy birth
And senseless Rock — if think ye can,
Think ye — how short the life of man!