The four and forty rivers are rallied at the heights,
In the melting of the days, in the dripping of the nights,
In the condensation of clouds:
In the quiet, easy overflow of temporary pools,
In the watering of flocks,
In the merry minnows, in crowds,
In schools,
In the fountains
Of the mountains,
In the seeping of the soil,
In the seeking of the level of the sea,—
In the leaking of the rocks,
In the bubble and the boil,
In the gushing to be free,
In the rushing into rivulets through rills,
In the trickle down the hills. . . .
The four and forty rivers are gathered in a brook,
That in the meadow, through the wood, and out again, a journey took,
And babbled steadily so everyone who heard it could agree,
And readily admitted that it did it very prettily—
A frightened wave of uninterrupted water murmuring over everything and under and around,
Telling all its troubles to the pebbles in its effort just to keep above the ground,
Saying: “Something has to happen to me soon, who can never forever go on, no matter how confident I look,
Being nothing but a brook. . . .”
The four and forty rivers are spreading in a stream,
Heading for the length, readying with the width, eddying to the depth of a dream;
Undifferentiating the drenched and the dry,
Restoring the wave to the cloud,
Illustrating that whatever can float can fly,
Presenting the dolphin to the dipper, the skipper to the sky,
Lifting the lowly and plunging the proud,
While the moonlight is falling in shivers
On the mirrors of the four and forty rivers. . . .
The four and forty rivers
Are halving the hills,
Carving the canyons, dividing the deserts, doubling the deltas, multiplying prairies,—
Soaring from reservoirs of silence, pouring in inevitable spills
Down thunderous chutes into valleys, in vagaries
Of effort and ease,
Fissuring the continents with four and forty slivers
That are four and forty routes to the seas. . . .
The four and forty rivers have returned to the ocean,
To the original notion that God had in mind
In the commotion of creation when it seems He was inclined
To search His own immensity to see what He could find
To show His devotion
To the wonder and refreshment of mankind;
And when the high and mighty Giver of all good givers
Sent out the lengthy message of the four and forty rivers
From the torrents of His tenderness and bliss,
From the whirlpools of Love that He is.
