Spirit's That Form'd this Scene by Walt Whitman

These photos were taken from top of Cedar Heights at Manitou

Springs.  Colorado Springs is on the left side and Pikes Peak is on the right.  It is a fantastic view and the Rocky Mountains are spectacular driving from Pikes Peak to Estes. 

 

In September 1879, Walt Whitman visits Colorado, the farthest west he'd ever get.  While in the three-year-old Centennial State, Whitman rebukes critics of his poetry with this poem.

 

 

Spirit That Form'd This Scene

Spirit that form'd this scene,
These tumbled rock-piles grim and red,
These reckless heaven-ambitous peaks,
These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked freshness,
These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own,
I know thee, savage spirit---we have communed together,
Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons of their own;
Was't charged against my chants they had forgotten art?
To fuse within themselves its rules precise and delicatesse?
The lyrist's measur'd beat, the wrought-out temple's grace---
      column and polish'd arch forgot?
But thou that revelest here---spirit that form'd this scene,
They have remember'd thee.

                                       --Walt Whitman