SCALE FORCE
by Abdullah Quilliam

“God is the creator of all things; He is the one,
the victorious God. He causeth water to
descend from heaven, and the brooks flow according
to their respective measure, and the floods bear the
flowing froth.” – Sura xiii. Ar Rad (Thunder), Koran.

                                                     It falls

  Within a rift between the granite walls,

  On either side, the bleak cold stone

  Where leafy ferns, and tender moss alone

  Find resting-place. Between the waving shrubs on high,

  Calm and serene, is dimly seen the sky.

  Whilst down the narrow gorge the stream

  In one long, silvery thread doth seem,

  In one continual glittering shower,

  An avalanche of diamonds to outpour.

  Beneath the fall, a cup-like bowl

  Receives the stream, then onward it doth roll,

  With a low rumbling, grumbling sound,

  O’er ruddy boulders, now worn smooth and round

  Until another smaller leap it takes,

  While all around the spray, like snowy flakes,

  Is scattered. Then, as though its mighty wrath

  Had been in one great angry burst poured forth,

  It gently ripples through the grassy mead,

  And to the distant lake doth slowly speed,

  And seems as though it murmured on its road

  Low cadences of hymns to Nature’s God,

  Whose mighty power hath formed them all,

  The brook, the lake, the rocks, the waterfall.
 

(Scale Force is the largest waterfall in the Lake District;
see http://www.visitcumbria.com/cm/scalforc.htm)