I stand upon a mountain rim,
Stone-paved and pattern'd as a street;
A rock-lipped cañon plunging south,
As if it were earth's open'd mouth,
Yawns deep and darkling at my feet;
So deep, so distant, and so dim
Its waters wind, a yellow thread,
And call so faintly and so far,
I turn aside my swooning head.
I feel a fierce impulse to leap
Adown the beetling precipice,
Like some lone, lost, uncertain star;
To plunge into a place unknown,
And win a world, all, all my own;
Or if I might not meet such bliss,
At least escape the curse of this.

  I gaze again. A gleaming star
Shines back as from some mossy well
Reflected from blue fields afar.
Brown hawks are wheeling here and there,
And up and down the broken wail
Cling clumps of dark green chaparral,
While from the rent rocks, grey and bare;
Blue junipers hang in the air.

    Here, cedars sweep the stream and here,
Among the boulders moss'd and brown
That time and storms have toppled down
From towers undefiled by man,
Low cabins nestle as in fear,
And look no taller than a span.
From low and shapeless chimneys rise
Some tall straight columns of blue smoke,
And weld them to the bluer skies;
While sounding down the somber gorge
I hear the steady pickax stroke,
As if upon a flashing forge.