 | The battle of Niagara |  |
They sit on that wave with a motionless wing;
And their cymbals are mute and the desert birds sing
Their unanswered notes to the wave and the sky—
One startling, and sudden—unchangeable cry,
As they stoop their broad wing and go sluggishly by:
For deep in that blue-bosomed water is laid,
As innocent, true, and as lovely a maid
As ever in cheerfulness carolled her song,
In the blithe mountain air, as she bounded along:
The heavens are all blue, and the billows bright verge
Is frothily laved by a whispering surge,
That heaves incessant, a tranquil dirge,
To lull the pale forms that sleep below:
Forms—that rock as the waters flow.
And their cymbals are mute and the desert birds sing
Their unanswered notes to the wave and the sky—
One startling, and sudden—unchangeable cry,
223
For deep in that blue-bosomed water is laid,
As innocent, true, and as lovely a maid
As ever in cheerfulness carolled her song,
In the blithe mountain air, as she bounded along:
The heavens are all blue, and the billows bright verge
Is frothily laved by a whispering surge,
That heaves incessant, a tranquil dirge,
To lull the pale forms that sleep below:
Forms—that rock as the waters flow.
| The battle of Niagara | |