And that aged Brahmapootra Who beyond the white Himalayas Passes many a lamassery On rocks forlorn and frore, A block of gaunt grey stone walls With rows of little barred windows, Where shrivelled young monks in yellow silk Are hidden for evermore....
But O that great river, the Amazon, I have sailed up its gulf with eyelids closed, And the yellow waters tumbled round, And all was rimmed with sky, Till the banks drew in, and the trees' heads, And the lines of green grew higher And I breathed deep, and there above me The forest wall stood high.
Those forest walls of the Amazon Are level under the blazing blue And yield no sound but the whistles and shrieks Of the swarming bright macaws; And under their lowest drooping boughs Mud-banks torpidly bubble, And the water drifts, and logs in the water Drift and twist and pause.
And everywhere, tacitly joining, Float noiseless tributaries, Tall avenues paved with water: And as I silent fly The vegetation like a painted scene, Spars and spikes and monstrous fans And ferns from hairy sheaths up-springing, Evenly passes by.
And stealthier stagnant channels Under low niches of drooping leaves Coil into deep recesses: And there have I entered, there To heavy, hot, dense, dim places Where creepers climb and sweat and climb, And the drip and splash of oozing water Loads the stifling air.
Rotting scrofulous steaming trunks, Great horned emerald beetles crawling, Ants and huge slow butterflies That had strayed and lost the sun; Ah, sick I have swooned as the air thickened To a pallid brown ecliptic glow, And on the forest, fallen with languor, Thunder has begun.
Thunder in the dun dusk, thunder Rolling and battering and cracking, The caverns shudder with a terrible glare Again and again and again, Till the land bows in the darkness, Utterly lost and defenceless, Smitten and blinded and overwhelmed By the crashing rods of rain.
And then in the forests of the Amazon, When the rain has ended, and silence come, What dark luxuriance unfolds From behind the night's drawn bars: The wreathing odours of a thousand trees And the flowers' faint gleaming presences, And over the clearings and the still waters Soft indigo and hanging stars.
O many and many are rivers, And beautiful are all rivers, And lovely is water everywhere That leaps or glides or stays; Yet by starlight, moonlight, or sunlight, Long, long though they look, these wandering eyes, Even on the fairest waters of dream, Never untroubled gaze.