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(Excerpt)
Anonymous translation
TREMENDOUS torrent! for an instant hush | |
| The terrors of thy voice, and cast aside | |
| Those wide-involving shadows, that my eyes | |
| May see the fearful beauty of thy face! | |
| I am not all unworthy of thy sight; | 5 |
| For from my very boyhood have I loved, | |
| Shunning the meaner track of common minds, | |
| To look on Nature in her loftier moods. | |
| At the fierce rushing of the hurricane, | |
| At the near bursting of the thunderbolt, | 10 |
| I have been touched with joy; and when the sea, | |
| Lashed by the wind, hath rocked my bark, and showed | |
| Its yawning caves beneath me, I have loved | |
| Its dangers and the wrath of elements. | |
| But never yet the madness of the sea | 15 |
| Hath moved me as thy grandeur moves me now. | |
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| Thou flowest on in quiet, till thy waves | |
| Grow broken midst the rocks; thy current then | |
| Shoots onward like the irresistible course | |
| Of Destiny. Ah, terribly they rage,— | 20 |
| The hoarse and rapid whirlpools there! My brain | |
| Grows wild, my senses wander, as I gaze | |
| Upon the hurrying waters; and my sight | |
| Vainly would follow, as toward the verge | |
| Sweeps the wide torrent. Waves innumerable | 25 |
| Meet there and madden,—waves innumerable | |
| Urge on and overtake the waves before, | |
| And disappear in thunder and in foam. | |
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| They reach, they leap the barrier,—the abyss | |
| Swallows insatiable the sinking waves. | 30 |
| A thousand rainbows arch them, and the woods | |
| Are deafened with the roar. The violent shock | |
| Shatters to vapor the descending sheets. | |
| A cloudy whirlwind fills the gulf, and heaves | |
| The mighty pyramid of circling mist | 35 |
| To heaven. The solitary hunter near | |
| Pauses with terror in the forest shades. | |
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| What seeks my restless eye? Why are not here, | |
| About the jaws of this abyss, the palms,— | |
| Ah, the delicious palms,—that on the plains | 40 |
| Of my own native Cuba spring and spread | |
| Their thickly foliaged summits to the sun, | |
| And, in the breathings of the ocean air, | |
| Wave soft beneath the heaven’s unspotted blue? | |
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| But no, Niagara,—thy forest pines | 45 |
| Are fitter coronal for thee. The palm, | |
| The effeminate myrtle, and frail rose may grow | |
| In gardens, and give out their fragrance there, | |
| Unmanning him who breathes it. Thine it is | |
| To do a nobler office. Generous minds | 50 |
| Behold thee, and are moved, and learn to rise | |
| Above earth’s frivolous pleasures; they partake | |
| Thy grandeur, at the utterance of thy name. * * * * * | |
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