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