Spirit That Form’d This Scene

Written in Platte Cañon, 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 ;Was’t 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.