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.