Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale! 
  O, struggling with the darkness all the night,
  And visited all night by troops of stars,
  Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink,
  Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
  Thyself Earth’s rosy star, and of the dawn
  Co-herald,—­wake, O, wake, and utter praise! 
  Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth? 
  Who filled thy countenance with rosy light? 
  Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

    And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! 
  Who called you forth from night and utter death,
  From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
  Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
  Forever shattered and the same forever? 
  Who gave you your invulnerable life,
  Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
  Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? 
  And who commanded (and the silence came),
  Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?

    Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain’s brow
  Adown enormous ravines slope amain,—­
  Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
  And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge! 
  Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! 
  Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven
  Beneath the keen full moon?  Who bade the sun
  Clothe you with rainbows?  Who, with living flowers
  Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? 
  God!—­let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
  Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God! 
  God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice! 
  Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! 
  And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
  And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!

    Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! 
  Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle’s nest! 
  Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm! 
  Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! 
  Ye signs and wonders of the elements! 
  Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!

    Thou, too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,
  Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,
  Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene,
  Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast,—­
  Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou
  That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
  In adoration, upward from thy base
  Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
  Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,
  To rise before me,—­Rise, O, ever rise! 
  Rise, like a cloud of incense from the Earth! 
  Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,
  Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven,
  Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
  And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
  Earth with her thousand voices, praises God.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.