In Print 16

A meadow path winds on towards a farm
With muddy yard and scratching hens:
A stream is gurgling, chattering over stones -
Befriends the path from its ends;
It bends into the hill, bridged by the track
And turns, now to reveal a gorge,
A giant slice cut from the grassy hill
With towering sides and great expense
Of jagged, jutting overhanging rocks
Streaked with white and purple strata;
Great boulders lie discarded in the stream
Which rushes, unperturbed, by all.

No ugly wooden hut with turnstile here;
Nor keeper selling photographs
Instead a wayside shrine, a waterfall -
Long has it ceased to crack end groan and splash.
The earth, now muddy, spray-blown, starts toward
A crevice, ventures forth below
Great caves whose granite faces mock mankind
Bewildered by nature's power.
For from far above the skyward reaching wall
Comes tumbling, cascading, bounding
An everlasting stream of glinting foam
To thunder on the rocks below.

And for above, on the forbidding creg,
A tree o'er leaning from the scanty soil,
A lonely edelweiss and alpine rose
Are looking down upon it all.