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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Germany: Vols. XVII–XVIII. 1876–79.

Appendix: Walchen See

Sonnet

By Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–1886)

Written in a Pass of Bavaria between the Walchen and the Walden See

“His voice was as the sound of many waters.”

A SOUND of many waters!—now I know

To what was likened the large utterance sent

By Him who mid the golden lampads went:

Innumerable streams, above, below,

Some seen, some heard alone, with headlong flow

Come rushing; some with smooth and sheer descent,

Some dashed to foam and whiteness, but all blent

Into one mighty music. As I go,

The tumult of a boundless gladness fills

My bosom, and my spirit leaps and sings;

Sounds and sights are there of the ancient hills,

The eagle’s cry, or when the mountain flings

Mists from its brow, but none of all these things

Like the one voice of multitudinous rills.