Spirit That Form'd This Scene

Walt Whitman

[Written in Platte Canyon, Colorado]

  Spirit that form'd this scene,
  These tumbled rock-piles grim and red,
  These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks,
  These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked freshness,
  These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own,
  I know thee, savage spirit--we have communed together,
  Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons of their own;
  Wast charged against my chants they had forgotten art?
  To fuse within themselves its rules precise and delicatesse?
  The lyrist's measur'd beat, the wrought-out temple's grace--column
      and polish'd arch forgot?
  But thou that revelest here--spirit that form'd this scene,
  They have remember'd thee.