To the Torrent at the Devil's Bridge, North Wales, 1824

HOW art thou named? In search of what strange land,

From what huge height, descending? Can such force

Of waters issue from a British source,

Or hath not Pindus fed thee, where the band

Of patriots scoop their freedom out, with hand

Desperate as thine? Or come the incessant shocks

From that young stream that smites the throbbing rocks

Of Viamala? There I seem to stand,

As in life’s morn; permitted to behold,

From the dread chasm, woods climbing above woods,

In pomp that fades not; everlasting snows;

And skies that ne’er relinquish their repose:

Such power possess the family of floods

Over the minds of poets, young or old!