Rain-Lashed Canyon
Pattering, puddling, pounding
from the peaks’-pane;
Rattling, ramping, rapping
on the road-beds;
Clattering, clamoring, clapping
on the cliffs;
Whorling, whirling,
washing down valleys.
Crags were carved
and canyons were deepened;
Rocks washed away
in the rills turned to rivers.
The churning was charged
with the chalk of the hillsides;
The burn was blackened
with blossoming earth;
White was the wash
with the willow-withes;
The tarns were tanned
by the trees torn down.
Flowers rode
on the foaming flow:
A wedding-procession
for the wives of Faunus.
The floodgates of Heaven
seemed flung wide open;
The roads themselves
ran like rivers in spate.