River-Canyon Poem by Clark Ashton Smith

River-Canyon



I

Moss-cup oaks, broadly sprawled,
Clench the path, with sapling laurels
Intervalled.

II

Ledge-thinned waters
Falling, divide and ravel
Over ferns and cress and gravel.

III

Arbors of the wild grape
Climb from alder-tops
To the cliff-grown copse.

IV

Columbine and Indian pink
Light the vine-fringed pool
Where the foxes drink.

V

High above
In their azure-walled estate
Shrills the red hawk to his mate.

VI

Far down the gorge steepens
Where inch by centuried inch the channel
Deepens.

VII

By the grape's long root
We clamber from the last ledge
To the river's edge.

VIII

With bronze and silver stippled
Runs the shallow-rippled
River over stones.

IX

Pebbles and driftwood
High-lodged amid the willows
Mark the winter-widened flood.

X

Ouzels dart, swiftly gone,
Past the heron standing
Stirless and alone.

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