Here at the roots of the mountains, <br />Between the sombre legions of cedars and tamaracks, <br />The rapids charge the ravine: <br />A little light, cast by foam under starlight, <br />Wavers about the shimmering stems of the birches: <br />Here rise up the clangorous sounds of battle, <br />Immense and mournful. <br />Far above curves the great dome of darkness <br />Drawn with the limitless lines of the stars and the planets. <br />Deep at the core of the tumult, <br />Deeper than all the voices that cry at the surface, <br />Dwells one fathomless sound, <br />Under the hiss and cry, the stroke and the plangent clamour. <br /> <br />O human heart that sleeps, <br />Wild with rushing dreams and deep with sadness! <br /> <br />The abysmal roar drops into almost silence, <br />While over its sleep play in various cadence <br />Innumerous voices crashing in laughter; <br />Then rising calm, overwhelming, <br />Slow in power, <br />Rising supreme in utterance, <br />It sways, and reconquers and floods all the spaces of silence, <br />One voice, deep with the sadness, <br />That dwells at the core of all things. <br />There by a nest in the glimmering birches, <br />Speaks a thrush as if startled from slumber, <br />Dreaming of Southern ricefields, <br />The moted glow of the amber sunlight, <br />Where the long ripple roves among the reeds. <br /> <br />Above curves the great dome of darkness, <br />Scored with the limitless lines of the stars and the planets; <br />Like the strong palm of God, <br />Veined with the ancient laws, <br />Holding a human heart that sleeps, <br />Wild with rushing dreams and deep with the sadness, <br />That dwells at the core of all things.<br /><br />Duncan Campbell Scott<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/rapids-at-night/
