Here, Echo, was thy reign of old, <br />Among these hills, a mystic crowd <br />Whose thunder rolled <br />When they speak loud <br />Still shocks the sea: here thy hair grew <br />Long as a cloud whose shadow drew <br />Itself o'er chaos, ere Time rose <br />With life and death and all of those <br />Who live and die, whose weakest word <br />Thine ears have heard; <br />Still as thou sitt'st with sightless eyes <br />On a bright cloud in the lone vale, <br />Or leaning o'er a mountain rill <br />Dost hark the ebbing roar <br />Of a dead sea on some primeval shore, <br />Whose unrecorded memories <br />Are like the language of old gods who fell <br />From some starred pinnacle <br />In the lost years — as all things will <br />Too fall at last, and the great tale <br />Of Time be never more retold; <br />Ay, e'en when chaos is re-rolled <br />O'er the opprest and the oppressor, thou <br />(Unseen, and but a word within that wail) <br />Shalt pass as in a trance where thought may go <br />When all is lying low.<br /><br />Robert Crawford<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/echo-44/
