Waterfall

Smooth to the shelving brink a copious flood Rolls fair and placid: where collected all, In one impetuous torrent down the steep It thundering shoots, and shakes the country round. At first, an azure sheet, it rushes broad; Then whitening by degrees, as prone it falls, And from the loud-resounding rocks below, Dash'd in a cloud of foam, it sends aloft A hoary mist, and forms a ceaseless shower. Nor can the tortured wave here find repose: But, raging still amid the shaggy rocks, Now flashes o'er the scatter'd fragments, now Aslant the hollow channel rapid darts; And falling fast from gradual slope to slope, With wild infracted course, and lessen'd roar, It gains a safer bed, and steals, at last, Along the mazes of a quiet vale.