Mystery

A little brook, with beauties grand,
Comes rippling from a mountain spring,
And winds its way o’er stone and sand
Through woods where birds melodious sing.
Through time unknown to days of man,
This murmuring stream has found its way,
And cut a ravine through the land,
A link in nature’s grand display.
And interwoven timber bends
In wreathy arches o’er the walls,
Through which this little brook descends,
To make its leap down o’er the falls.
It rushes down its winding stair,
A bold and sparkling silvery sheet;
It sends its mist into the air,
And forms a rainbow at its feet.
By little streams the chasm cliff
Is worn to grains of drifting sand,
And angry waters foam and drift
Through wonderous wall not made by hand.
And man looks back through time unknown
To date the wonderous streamlet hand,
Which sculptured chasm wall of stone,
And wore its chips to grains of sand.
But could the work a life had done
Be seen by eves of mortal man,
The sands that crumble one by one
Could equal not the busy hand.
Though life is short man, leaves the stage,
As though his wonderous work was done,
Another man, another age,
Proves that his work has just begun.
So like the mystic cataract stream
Which flows a myriad years through sand,
The world’s adrift by light and stream,
The work of ages, brain and hand.