THOU Who wouldst see the lovely and the wild Mingled in harmony on Nature's face,
Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot Fail not with weariness, for on their tops The beauty and the majesty of earth
Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget The steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand'st,
The haunts of men below thee, and around
The mountain summits, thy expanding heart
Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world To which thou art translated, and partake The enlargement of thy vision. Thou shalt look Upon the green and rolling forest tops
And down into the secrets of the glens,
And streams, that with their bordering thickets strive
To hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze, at
Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds, And swarming roads, and there on solitudes That only hear the torrent, and the wind, And eagle's shriek. There is a precipice That seems a fragment of some mighty wall Built by the hand that fashioned the old world, To separate its nations, and thrown down When the flood drowned them. To the north
Conducts you up the narrow battlement.
Steep is the western side, shaggy and wild
With mossy trees, and pinnacles of flint, And many a hanging crag. But, to the east, Sheer to the vale go down the bare old cliffs,-- Huge pillars, that in middle heaven upbear Their weather-beaten capitals, here dark With moss the growth of centuries, and there Of chalky whiteness where the thunderbolt Has splintered them. It is a fearful thing To stand upon the beetling verge, and see Where storm and lightning, from that huge gray wall,
Have tumbled down vast blocks, and at the base Dashed them in fragments, and to lay thine ear Over the dizzy depth, and hear the sound Of winds that struggle with the woods below, Come up like ocean murmurs. But the scene Is lovely round; a beautiful river there Wanders amid the fresh and fertile meads, The paradise he made unto himself,
Mining the soil for ages. On each side
The fields swell upward to the hills; beyond, Above the hills, in the blue distance, rise The mountain columns with which earth props heaven.
There is a tale about these reverend rocks, A sad tradition of unhappy love,
And sorrows borne and ended, long ago, When over these fair vales the savage sought His game in the thick woods. There was a maid, The fairest of the Indian maids, bright-eyed, With wealth of raven tresses, a light form, And a gay heart. About her cabin door The wide old woods resounded with her song And fairy laughter all the summer day. She loved her cousin; such a love was deemed, By the morality of those stern tribes, Incestuous, and she struggled hard and long Against her love, and reasoned with her heart, As simple Indian maiden might. In vain.
Then her eye lost its lustre, and her step
Its lightness, and the gray-haired men that passed
Her dwelling, wondered that they heard no more The accustomed song, and laugh of her, whose
Were like the cheerful smile of Spring, they
Upon the winter of their age. She went
To weep, where no eye saw, and was not found When all the merry girls were met to dance, And all the hunters of the tribe were out; Nor when they gathered from the rustling husk The shining ear; nor when, by the river's side, They pulled the grape and startled the wild shades
With sounds of mirth. The keen-eyed Indian
Would whisper to each other, as they saw
Her wasting form, and say the girl will die!
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