The rivers run and sing and splash
From mountain tarn through groves of ash,
And alders lifting dainty limbs
Like new waked nuns singing hymns,
The rivers run, the rivers dash.

The rivers run in sheer delight,
And cataract from crag to glen,
O'er graveled bottoms pearled in light
Until they reach the 'bodes of men.

And bilious men and thoughtless men,
Corrupting men, uncaring men,
Begin their ritual dance of greed,
Unmindful of the lesser breed,
They pour their baleful toxins in
'Til fecal sludged from shore to shore,
The rivers heave and still they pour.

Rainbow trouted creeks and lakes
Once sparkled pure and clear and bright,
Lie now bescummed in oily night,
Unsunned and sickled o'er with blight.

And man the mover, man the damned,
Has killed his seas and he has drowned
In self made oceans of despair
That sear his lungs with poisoned air.

The rivers run, ah, slowly now,
Like molten lavas cooling dry,
The rivers run, the rivers die.

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