The trachyte wall, beseamed and battle scarred;
The porphyritic tower and citadel;
The granite ramparts and embattlements
Of nature's fort, impregnable and wild,
Stand as a symbol of eternal strength,
And hurl a challenge to the elements!

Cañons of startling and appalling depths,
With caverns, vast and gloomy, which would seem
Meet for the haunt of centaur or of gnome;
The gorgon and the labyrinthodon;
The clumsy mammoth and the dinosaur;
Or all gigantic and unwieldy shapes
Which earth has seen in the mysterious past,
Would seem in more accord and harmony
With such surroundings than the puny form
Of insignificant, conceited man.

And interspersed amid these solemn peaks
Lie many a pleasant vale and grassy slope,
Besprinkled with the drooping columbine,
And fragrant growths of all harmonious tints,
Whose variegated colors punctuate
Grandeur with beauty, and fearless, bloom
In the forbidding shadow of the cliffs,
And to the margin of the snowy combs
Which still resist the sun's persuasive ray.

A lakelet, cool, pellucid and serene,