Classic Poem

“Oft in that barren hollow, where
Through moss-hung hemlocks blasted, there
  Whirl the dark rapids of Yowhayle;
Oft, too, by Teoratie blue,
 And where the silent wave that slides
Tessuya's cedar islets through,
 Cahogaronta's cliff divides
 In foam through deep Kurloonah's vale—
 Where great Tahawus splits the sky,
  Where Borrhas greets his melting snows,
 By those linked lakes that shining lie
  Where Metauk's whispering forest grows—
 From Nessingh's sluggish waters, red
 With alder roots that line their bed,
To where, through many a grassy vlie ,
  The winding Atatea flows;
And from Oukorla's glistening eye
To hoary Wahopartenie,
 As still from spot to spot we fled,
  How often his despairing sigh,
  How oft his hoarse, half-muttered cry
  The very air has thickened
  On which his fruitless prayer was sped!
 Where naked Ounowarlah towers;
  Where Sandanona's shadows float;
Where wind-swept Nodoneyo lowers,
  And in that gorge's quaking throat,
Reft by O TNEYARH'S giant band,
 Where splinters of the mountain vast,
 Though lashed by cable roots, aghast,
Toppling amid their ruin, stand;
Through Reuna's hundred isles of green,
  By Onegora's pebbly pools;
Where Paskungamah's birches lean,
And where, through many a dark ravine,
The triple crown of crags is seen
  By which grim Towaloondah rules—
By Gwi-endauqua's bristling fall,
  Through Twen-ungasko's echoing glen,
  To wild Ouluska's inmost den,
Alone—alone with that poor thrall,
I wrestled life away in all!”