The Waterfall

Lo! like a glorious pile of diamonds bright,
Built on the steadfast cliffs, the waterfall
Pours forth its gems of pearl and silver light:
They sink, they rise, and sparkling cover all
With infinite refulgence; while its song,
Sublime as thunder, rolls the woods along--

Rolls through the woods--they send its accents back,
Whose last vibration in the desert dies:
Its radiance glances o’er the watery track,
Till the soft wave, as wrapt in slumber, lies
Beneath the forest-shade; then sweetly flows
A milky stream, all silent, as it goes.

Its foam is scattered on the margent bound,
Skirting the darksome grove. But list! the hum
Of industry, the rattling hammer’s sound,
Files whizzing, creaking sluices, echoed come
On the fast-travelling breeze! O no! no voice
Is heard around, but thy majestic noise!

When the mad storm-wind tears the oak asunder,
In thee its shivered fragments find their tomb;
When rocks are riven by the bolt of thunder,
As sands they sink into thy mighty womb:
The ice that would imprison thy proud tide,
Like bits of broken glass is scattered wide.

The fierce wolf prowls around thee--there he stands
Listening--not fearful, for he nothing fears:
His red eyes burn like fury-kindled brands,
Like bristles o’er him his course fur he rears;
Howling, thy dreadful roar he oft repeats,
And, more ferocious, hastes to bloodier feats.

The wild stag hears thy falling waters’ sound,
And tremblingly flies forward--o’er her back
She bends her stately horns--the noiseless ground
Her hurried feet impress not--and her track
Is lost amidst the tumult of the breeze,
And the leaves falling from the rustling trees.

The wild horse thee approaches in his turn:
He changes not his proudly rapid stride;
His mane stands up erect--his nostrils burn--
He snorts--he pricks his ears--and starts aside;
Then rushing madly forward to thy steep,
He dashes down into thy torrents deep.

Beneath the cedar, in abstraction sunk,
Close to thine awful pile of majesty,
On yonder old and mouldering moss-bound trunk,
That hangs upon the cliff’s rude edge, I see
An old man, on whose forehead winter’s snow
Is scattered, and his hand supports his brow.

The lance, the sword, the ample shield beneath
Lie at his feet obscured by spreading rust;
His casque is circled by an ivy wreath--
Those arms were once his country’s pride and trust:
And yet upon his golden breast-plate plays
The gentle brightness of the sunset rays.

He sits, and muses on the rapid stream,
While deep thoughts struggling from his bosom rise:
“Emblem of man! here brightly pictured seem
The world’s gay scenery and its pageantries,
Which, as delusive as thy shining wave,
Glow for the proud, the coward and the slave.

So is our little stream of life poured out,
In the wild turbulence of passion: so,
Midst glory’s glance and victory’s thunder-shout,
The joys of life in hurried exile go--
Till hope’s fair smile and beauty’s ray of light
Are shrouded in the griefs and storms of night.

Day after day prepares the funeral shroud;
The world is gray with age:--the striking hour
Is but an echo of death’s summons loud--
The jarring of the dark grave’s prison door:
Into its deep abyss--devouring all--
Kings and the friends of kings alike must fall.

Aye! they must fall! see that unconquered one
Midst Rome’s high senate--hark! his deeds they tell:
He stretch’d his hand to seize the proffered crown;
His mantle veiled his countenance--he fell.
Where are the schemes, the hopes that dazzled him?
Those eyes, aspiring to a throne, are dim.

Aye! they must fall! another hero see,
From triumph’s golden chariot fortune flings:
The proudest son of magnanimity,
Who scorned the purple robe:--ev’n he whom kings
Looked to with reverence: he in prison dies,
Heaven’s light extinguished in his vacant eyes.

Aye! they must fall! as I have fallen--I,
Whom late with flowery wreaths the cities crown’d;
And dazzling phantoms played so smilingly
Midst laurels, olive-branches waving round;
’Tis past--’tis past--for in the battle now
My hand no lightnings at the foe can throw.

My strength abandons me; the tempest’s roar
Hath in its fury borne my lance away:
My spirit rises proudly as before,
But triumph hides her false and treacherous ray.”
He spake--he slumbered, wearied and opprest;
And Morpheus o’er him waved his wings of rest.

A wintry darkness visited the world,
Borne on the raven-pinions of the night;
Nothing is heard but thy loud torrents, hurled
Down in their fierceness from the o’erhanging height;
They dash in fury ’gainst the echoing rock,
Even with an Alpine avalanche’s shock.

The desert is as gloomy as the grave;
The mountains seem all wrapt in solemn sleep;
The clouds are rolling by, like wave on wave,
In silent majesty across heaven’s deep.
But see, the pale-faced melancholy moon
Looks tremblingly from her exalted throne:

She look’d out tremblingly, and soon withdrew
Her terror-stricken horns: the old man lay
Sleeping in sweet tranquillity: she knew
Her mighty foe--she knew, and slunk away:
She dared not look on that old man, for he
Was the world’s glory and her enemy.

He slumber’d; glorious were his hero-dreams!
And wondrous visions floated round his eye:
While near, the sleeping bolt of thunder seems
To wait from him its awful destiny.
Ten thousand warriors armed around him stand,
And silently attend his high command.

His finger points! the loud artillery’s fire
Follows! a sudden trembling shakes the ground;
Army on army, in their proud attire,
Cover the vales, the hills, the plains around;
They rise like mountains o’er the distant sea,
When from the sunny ray the vapours flee.

His footsteps now imprint the dewy grass;
There early morning opens on his view,
Amidst the dust, th’ innumerable mass
Of enemies: he looks their squadrons through,
And reads the secrets of their vast array,
Even as an eagle soaring o’er his prey.

Then like a Magus in his dark retreat
He calls his spirits round him; gathering those
And scattering these, with prudence infinite,
Thro’ valleys, plains, and mountains; then he throws
O’er all a mantle of omnipotence,
While the storm bursts with furious vehemence.

The eagle’s daring, and the crescent’s pride,
There, by the ebony and the amber sea,
He humbles; and, by the evening’s golden side,
Subdues the golden fleece and Kolkhidi.
A thousand trophies of victorious war
Redeem the losses of the snowy tzar:

Like the vermilion ray on morning’s wings,
His triumphs o’er admiring nations beam:
Emperors and empires, heroes, kingdoms, kings,
Unite to praise, unite to honour him,
And raise above his glory-circled head
A laurelled, time-enduring pyramid.

His name, his deeds through hurrying years appear
Bright as the sun-beams on the mountain’s brow,
Dazzling the world with splendor: waving there
Garlands of radiance-giving laurels glow;
Their rays shall animate the future fight,
And fill the brave one’s breast with hope and light.

Envy, disarmed before his piercing glance,
Bends down her head to earth, and hurries by;
Crawls trembling to her vile retreat askance--
She cannot bear the lightnings of his eye.
Go, envy, to thy dark and deep abyss!
What deeds, what fame can be compared to his?

He slumbers midst these images; but now
He hears the howling dogs--the trembling trees;
The vulture’s cries, the screech-owl’s voice of woe,
And the fierce raging of the turbulent breeze;
The wild beasts’ roaring from their distant lair,
And shadowy spirits fill the troubled air.

The oaks are shivered by the maddened storm;
Armies of ravens flap their funeral wings;
The stony mountain shakes its giant form,
And bursts, with terrible re-echoings:
From rock to rock ’tis vibrated around,
And thunders thunder back the thundering sound.

A winged woman, clad in sable weeds,
Her long hair scattered by the winds, was there,
Like one with dreadful, deathful news that speeds:
She waved a scythe-like weapon in the air,
And held a golden trump; she called “Arise,”
And her loud voice was echoed through the skies.

See on her casque the frowning eagle rest,
Grasping the fearful thunderbolt: he bears
His country’s shield upon his noble breast.
The old man waked; he shed a shower of tears;
He sighed, and bent his venerable head,
Uttering--“Some hero surely must be dead.

Happy if always combating for right
When combating with glory: happy he
Whose sword knew mercy in the bloodiest fight,
His shield an Ægis for an enemy.
Centuries to come shall celebrate his fame,
And ‘Friend of Man’ shall be his noblest name.

Dear let his memory be, and proud his grave,
And this his epitaph!--‘He lived, he fought
For truth and wisdom: foremost of the brave,
Him glory’s idle glances dazzled not;
’Twas his ambition, generous and great,
A life to life’s great end to consecrate!’

O glory! glory! mighty one on earth!
How justly imaged in this waterfall!
So wild and furious in thy sparkling birth,
Dashing thy torrents down, and dazzling all,
While hurrying thus sublimely from thy height,
Majestic, thundering, beautiful and bright.

How many a wondering eye is turned to thee,
In admiration lost;--short-sighted men!
Thy furious wave gives no fertility;
Thy waters, rolling fiercely through the plain,
Bring nought but devastation and distress,
And leave the flowery vale a wilderness.

O fairer, lovelier is the modest rill,
Watering with steps serene the field, the grove;
Its gentle voice as sweet and soft and still
As shepherd’s pipe, or song of youthful love.
It has no thundering torrent, but it flows
Unwearied, scattering blessings as it goes.

To the wild mountain let the wanderer come,
And, resting on the turf, look round and see,
With sadden’d eye, the green and grassy tomb,
And hear its monitory language: he--
He sleeps below, not famed in war alone;
The great, the good, the generous-minded one.

O be immortal, warlike hero! Thou
Hast done thy duty--all thy duty here.”
So said the old man crowned with locks of snow:
He looked to heaven, then stood in silence there,--
In silence, but the echoes caught the sound,
And filled the listening scenery around.

Who glances there along the mountain’s side,
Just like the moon upon the darkest wave?
What shadow flits across the midnight tide,
Gleaming as if from heaven? The pitchy grave
Is brighter than that gloomy brow, ’tis clad
In deep and desolate abstraction sad!

What wondrous spirit from the north descends?
The winds are swift, but cannot follow him:
Nation on nation struck with terror bends;
His voice is thunder; starry glories gleam
Around him, and his glancing footsteps bright
Scatter a thousand thousand rays of light.

His body, like a dark and gloomy shade,
On midnight’s melancholy bosom lies:
A coarse and heavy garment round him laid,
And thickening films are gathering round his eyes:
His icy fingers press his bosom chill,
His lips are opened wide, but all is still.

His bed, the earth: his roof, the azure sky:
His palace, yonder desert stretching wide.
Art thou the son of fame and luxury?
The prince of Tavrid? from thy height of pride
Fallen so low and lonely? and is this
But one dark step from glory and from bliss?

Wert thou the favourite of the northern throne,
Minerva’s favourite? Wert thou he that trod
The Muse’s temple--thou, Apollo’s son,
The pride of Mars--thou, on whose mighty nod
Both peace and war stood waiting; nobly great,
Not clad in purple, but a potentate?

What! art thou he that cradled and uprear’d
The Russian’s prowess--Catherine’s energy?
Sustain’d by her, thy thunderbolt was heard
Rolling through distant lands its majesty;
And to the everlasting heights was hurl’d,
Whence Rome sent forth her mandates to the world.

Art thou not he who bade the robber yield;
Scatter’d the pirate herds the desert o’er,
And bade the city flourish and the field,
Where all was waste and barrenness before;
Sprinkled with ships the Euxine--while the shore
Even of the tropics heard thy cannons’ roar?

Wert thou the great, the glorious one, who knew
With martial fire the hero Russ to fill;
Taught him the very elements to subdue,
In burning Ochakov and Ismahil:
With eagle-daring, eagle-strength inspired;
While valour looked and wondered and admired?

’Tis he, the hardiest of mortals; he,
Sublimely soaring, takes his flight alone,
Creator of his own proud destiny:
No footstep near him--that bright path his own.
Thy fame, Potemkin, shall in glory glow,
While everlasting ages lingering flow.

Beauty and art and knowledge raised to him
Triumphal arches: smiling fortune wove
Myrtle and laurel-wreaths, and victory’s beam
Lighted them up with brightness: joy and love
Play’d round thy flow’ry footsteps: pleasure, pride
Walk’d in majestic glory at thy side.

’Tis he, ’tis he to whom the poet brought
His offerings lighted with the Muse’s fire:
Thundering with Pindar’s majesty of thought,
And breathing all the sweetness of the lyre,
I sang the victories of Ismahil;
But thou wert gone--the poet’s lyre was still.

Alas! ’twas then a vain and voiceless shell:
Or, if it spoke, its tone was but despair;
From my weak hands it fell, in dust it fell,
My eye was dimmed by the fast-falling tear:
I stood the stars of paradise beneath,
But all was darkness, desolation, death!

’Tis still, where all was eloquent with thee:
The thunders of thy fame have rolled away;
Thy orphan’d armies wail their misery;
The ear is wearied with their plaintive lay.
’Twas brightness all, with joy and beauty bright,
But now ’tis night, ’tis desolation’s night.

Thy laurel crown is faded in its pride:
Thy sparkling Bulava is broken now;
Thy half-sheathed sword hangs useless at thy side;
And Catherine mourns her woe, her more than woe:
He fell; his mighty, unexpected fall
Shook, like an earthquake, the terrestrial ball.

Peace brought her fresh green laurel branches; saw
His fall, and from her hands the garland fell.
She heard the voice of wretchedness and woe;
The Muses joined to sing a funeral knell
Around the tomb of Pericles:--the strain
Of Maro wept Macænas’ fate again.

His was a kingdom full of light: a throne
Of more than regal glory was his seat:
A rosy-silver steed convey’d him on--
A splendour-glancing phaeton at his feet:
Proudest of all the proud equestrians he--
He fell:--in death’s dull, dark obscurity.

O! what is human glory, human pride?
What are man’s triumphs when they brightest seem?
What art thou, mighty one! though deified?
Methusalem’s long pilgrimage, a dream;
Our age is but a shade, our life a tale,
A vacant fancy, or a passing gale,

Or nothing! ’Tis a heavy hollow ball,
Suspended on a slender, subtle hair,
And filled with storm-winds, thunders, passions, all
Struggling within in furious tumult there.
Strange mystery! man’s gentlest breath can shake it,
And the light zephyrs are enough to break it.

But a few hours, or moments, and beneath
Empires are buried in a night of gloom:
The very elements are leagued with death,
A breath sends giants to their lonely tomb.
Where is the mighty one? He is not found,
His dust lies trampled in the noiseless ground!

The dust of heroes? No! their glories rise
Triumphant upwards, spreading living light
And pure imperishable memories
Through ages of forgetfulness and night:
Flowers shining on time’s wintry mountain side;
Potemkin could not die--he has not died!

His theatre was th’ Euxine’s distant shore,
His temple, thankful hearts: the glorious hand
That crowns him, Catherine’s: glancing, dazzling o’er
Was fame’s all-eloquent, triumphant band.
Life was a list of triumphs, and his head
Beneath a tomb-stone, reared by love, was laid.

When the red morn breaks trembling o’er the dew,
And through the woods the wild winds whistle shrill;
When the dark Danube wears a bloody hue--
Then is the name oft heard of Ismahil,
And oft a gloomy voice is echoed then,
Through twilight, “Say what means the Saracen?”

He trembles, and his eye is dimmed with fear,
The arms he dreads are sparkling in the sun;
And forty thousand Moslems dying there,
Are the proud trophies of the northern one.
Their shades, like frighted spectres, glide before,
And the Russ stands in streams of human gore.

He trembles, and looks upwards, but the skies
Are covered with portentous omens dire;
Dark visions from the sea of Tavrid rise,
And the land shakes with heaven’s excited ire:
Ochakov pours anew her sanguine flood,
And terror seems to freeze that tide of blood.

As through the fluid brightness of the sea,
Beneath the welkin’s sunny canopy,
The tenants of the waves glide joyfully;
So o’er the Leman’s face our squadrons fly,
Their swell’d sails bursting with the winds, they tell
How proud the ambition of the Russ can swell.

Ours is unutterable triumph now,
Theirs fears and apprehensions: on the tomb
That shields their heroes, thorns and mosses grow;
Laurels and roses o’er our heroes bloom.
Our glory-girded mausoleums stand
O’er conquerors of the ocean and the land.

When the sun sinks at evening’s calmest close,
Love sorrowfully sits: the breeze of spring
Across the melancholy harp-strings blows,
And spreads around its deep notes sorrowing:
Sighs from his bosom burst, and tears are shed
Upon the sleeping hero’s sculptured bed.

And ere the morning gilds the distant hill,
And o’er the golden tomb the sunbeams play;
While yet the wild deer sleeps; and night winds shrill
Wind round the mountain’s side; the old man gray
Hangs o’er the monument in secret gloom,
And reads, “Potemkin’s consecrated tomb!”

Manes of Alcibiades! so low,
That even the earth-worm joys in their decay:
There lies the casque that bound Achilles’ brow;
The shepherd finds it--bears that casque away
On his base forehead! Does it matter? Nay!
The victor sleeps--his glory? wrapt in clay!

But gratitude still lives and loves to cherish
The patriot’s virtues, while the soul of song
In sacred tones, that never never perish,
Fame’s everlasting thunder bears along;
The lyre has an eternal voice--of all
That’s holy, holiest is the good man’s pall.

List then, ye worldly waterfalls! Vain men,
Whose brains are dizzy with ambition; bright
Your swords--your garments flow’ry like a plain
In the spring time--if truth be your delight
And virtue your devotion, let your sword
Be bared alone at wisdom’s sacred word.

Roar, roar, thou waterfall! lift up thy voice
Even to the clouded regions of the skies:
Thy brightness and thy beauty may rejoice,
Thy music charms the ears, thy light the eyes;
Joy-giving torrent! sweetest memory
Receives a freshness and a strength from thee.

Roll on! no clouds shall on thy waters lie
Darkling: no gloomy thunder-tempest break
Over thy face: let the black night-dews fly
Thy smiles, and sweetly let thy murmurs speak
In distance and in nearness: be it thine
To bless with usefulness, with beauty shine.

Thou parent of the waterfall! proud river!
Thou northern thunderer, Suna! hurrying on
In mighty torrent from the heights, and ever
Sparkling with glory in the gladdened sun,
Now dashing from the mountain to the plain,
And scattering purple fire and sapphire rain.

’Tis momentary vehemence: thy course
Is calm and soft and silent; clear and deep
Thy stately waters roll: in the proud force
Of unpretending majesty, they sweep
The sideless marge, and brightly, tranquilly,
Bear their rich tributes to the grateful sea.

Thy stream, by baser waters unalloyed,
Washes the golden banks that o’er thee smile;
Until the clear Onega drinks its tide,
And swells while welcoming the glorious spoil:
O what a sweet and soul-composing scene,
Clear as the cloudless heavens, and as serene!