Classic Poem

I wanted to look once more on the Androscoggin.
I went to the bridge, to linger there for a while.
I wanted to watch the river plunge between the cities.
As a conquering horde would appear through a breach in the ramparts of a town,
so the Androscoggin appears through a break in the growth of pines at the crest of the falls.
As the conquering horde would plunge from the ramparts into the town itself,
so the river plunges into its lower channel.
It is mighty.
It is august.

Nothing is changed.
There are today the great mills rising from the waters — —
the old brick mills that were there when I was a child, a romantic child, to whom
the mills, as viewed by the light of the moon, seemed ancient castles.

Nothing is changed.
The greater cataract,
amber and white,
descends about the enormous boulders
forming the head of the aged man.
The great March floods are as mischievous as ever.
On the brow of the rugged head
they have placed a slab of ice — —
a duncecap crowning a scowling sage.
Silky, voluptuous, pompous, resplendent,
the sounding volumes roll down archly to the lower basin,
and from there,
great scrolls of foam — —
amber and white — —
sweep down the river and under the bridge.

Nothing is changed.
The smaller cataract, tortuous, precipitous, vicious, furious,
leaves the greater,
and, like a python striking from above,
darts through its narrow sluiceway of boulders — —
jagged boulders.
In the lower basin
it thunders wildly.
Writhing, lashing,
the sounding volumes — —
amber and white — —
burst into mist that rises as high as the roofs of the mills.

Do the columbines now grow by the smaller cataract?
They used to cling to the rocks by the plunging waters,
and there they nodded in the spray.
There I used to go for sanctuary — —
seeking the holy silence of the din.