The Cataract Birds [pp. 636-637]

7'ie Catirac/ Bitifs.
THE CATARACT BIRDS.
N THE wild Yosemite Valley
Are the palace-chambers of Atlas.
He gave to his mist-robed dcaughters
'IThat hall of the winds and waters
A myriad years ago;
And they dwell there, white and immortal,
Tall cataract queens, and their tresses
Of rain fall streaming forever
\To their feet afloor in the river,
Two hundred fathoms below.
Onlv the wraiths of the desert
Make home there, at peace with the Titans,
Only the gods of the mountain,
The children of cavern and fountain,
People that solitude old;
For the hearts of men sink within them,
Too weak for the terrible greatness,
And no boasting words ever come there,
And thought waits doubting and dumb there,
And feeling trembles untold.
The dizzy heights and the grandeurs,
The marvelous pomp and the glory,
Are alone with the kindred that love them,
With the trees below and above them,
The windls and the waterfalls,
And the birds that sing by the river;And the bird-songs out of the tumult
Enchant as they ripple and rally,
And the mighty soul of the valley
Throbs where their melody calls.
For the long white sheets of the torrents
Down the headlong scarp of the canion
That sweep in plunges of thunder
At a puff fly streaming asunder
And flash into whispering spray;
And the truce of the wind and water
Is the turn of the birds and their chorus
That thrills in sweet allegrettoes
Through the chaparral up from the meadows,
Till the gust in the glen dies away.
[D)ec.