smooth
sweep of currents over broad shelves of sunken rock, the dizzy swirl and
suck of whirlpools.

Spell-bound, the journeyers pored upon the deathful course beneath their
feet, gave a shudder to the horror of being cast upon it, and then
hurried over the bridge to the island, in the shadow of whose wildness
they sought refuge from the sight and sound.

There had been rain in the night; the air war full of forest fragrance,
and the low, sweet voice of twittering birds. Presently they came to a
bench set in a corner of the path, and commanding a pleasant vista of
sunlit foliage, with a mere gleam of the foaming river beyond. As they
sat down here loverwise, Basil, as in the early days of their courtship,
began to recite a poem. It was one which had been haunting him since his
first sight of the rapids, one of many that he used to learn by heart in
his youth--the rhyme of some poor newspaper poet, whom the third or
fourth editor copying his verses consigned to oblivion by carelessly
clipping his name from the bottom. It had always lingered in Basil's
memory, rather from the interest of the awful fact it recorded, than from
any merit of its own; and now he recalled it with a distinctness that
surprised him.

AVERY.

I.
All night long they heard in the houses beside the shore,
Heard, or seemed to hear, through the multitudinous roar,
Out of the hell of the rapids as 'twere a lost soul's cries
Heard and could not believe; and the morning mocked their eyes,
Showing where wildest and fiercest the waters leaped up and ran
Raving round him and past, the visage of a man
Clinging, or seeming to cling, to the trunk of a tree that, caught
Fast in the rocks below, scarce out of the surges raught.
Was it a life, could it be, to yon slender hope that clung
Shrill, above all the tumult the answering terror rang.

II.
Under the weltering rapids a boat from the bridge is drowned,
Over the rocks the lines of another are tangled and wound,
And the long, fateful hours of the morning have wasted soon,
As it had been in some blessed trance, and now it is noon.
Hurry, now with the raft! But O, build it strong and stanch,
And to the lines and the treacherous rocks look well as you launch
Over the foamy tops of the waves, and their foam-sprent sides,
Over the hidden reefs, and through the embattled tides,
Onward rushes the raft, with many a lurch and leap,--
Lord! if it strike him l