Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE RIMROCK, by ETHEL M. BOLT



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE RIMROCK, by                    
First Line: Standing in close formation
Last Line: Are vanishing far in the distance.


Standing in close formation
as they have stood for centuries,
Each separate rock in its setting
like stones in a colorful necklace,
Yet merging into the solid wall
as done by the Master Builder,
Invincible, grim, unscalable,
a sentinel guarding the canyon;
Towering over the chasm below,
omnipotent in the silence
Broken only by voices of birds
and the murmuring sound of the streamlet.

Fed by a tiny spring
far up near the head of the canyon,
Under the dark-fringed rim,
the brook has the source of its being;
Swelled to a roar is its song,
when the clouds, black-browed and impatient,
Gather their forces above,
with muttering thunder and lightning,
Blotting the sunshine out;
and then o'er the darkening landscape
Open their fountain heads,
and hurl down their torrents of water.

Now is the tempest over;
and on the wet face of the rimrock,
Standing in beauty renewed,
and refreshed by the sluice of the downpour,
Fall with revealing splendor
the rays of returning sunshine.
Twitters of birds are heard,
reappearing from out their hiding,
While on the air is spreading
the fragrance of rain-wet pine trees,
And the retreating storm-clouds
are vanishing far in the distance.





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