Memorials of a Happy Time: The Elder River [The Brathay]

Now follow me to yonder gloomy hills
That to the westward rise: a thousand rills
Gush wildly from their rifted sides to form
That dark, romantic river's early course.
It is the nursling of the cloudy storm,
And carries somewhat of its mother's force
Along with it: leaping with one mad bound
Over a rocky fall. Yet are there found
Pools of most silent beauty, calm and deep;
Though there, too, glittering foam-bells tell a tale
Of things before it reached that placid vale,
Where the new church o'erhangs its woodland sweep.
Oh! how these brooks with hidden meanings teem,
Which no one in the world but you and I would dream