AS looked the traveller for the world below,
The
lively morning breeze began to blow,
The magic curtain
rolled in mists away,
And a gay landscape laughed upon
the day.
As light the fleeting vapors upward glide,
Like sheeted spectres on the mountain side,
New objects
open to his wondering view
Of various form, and
combinations new,
A rocky precipice, a waving wood,
Deep winding dell, and foaming mountain flood,
Each after
each, with coy and sweet delay,
Broke on his sight, as at
young dawn of day,
Bounded afar by peak aspiring bold,
Like giant capt with helm of burnished gold.
Now down
the mountain's rugged western side,
Descending slow, our
lowly travellers hied,
Deep in a narrow glen, within
whose breast
The rolling fragments of the mountain rest;
Rocks tumbled on each other, by rude chance,
Crowned with
gay fern, and mosses, met the glance,
Through which a
brawling river braved its way,
Dashing among the rocks in
foamy spray.
Here, mid the fragments of a broken world,
In wild and rough confusion idly hurled,
Where ne'er was
heard the woodman's echoing stroke,
Rose a huge forest of
gigantic oak;
With heads that towered half up the
mountain's side,
And arms extending round them far and
wide,
They looked coeval with old mother Earth,
And
seemed to claim with her an equal birth.
The forest
roared, the everlasting oak
In writhing agonies the storm
bespoke,
The live leaves scattered wildly everywhere,
Whirled round in maddening circles in the air,
The
stoutest limbs were scattered all around,
The stoutest
trees a stouter master found,
Crackling and crashing,
down they thundering go,
And seem to crush the shrinking
rocks below:
Then the thick rain in gathering torrents
poured,
Higher the river rose, and louder roared;
And
on its dark, quick eddying surface bore
The gathered
spoils of Earth along its shore;
While trees, that not an
hour before had stood
The lofty monarchs of the stately
wood,
Now whirling round and round with furious force,
Dash 'gainst the rocks that break the torrent's force,
And shiver, like a reed by urchin broke
Through idle
mischief, or with heedless stroke;
A hundred cataracts,
unknown before,
Rush down the mountain's side with
fearful roar;
And as with foaming fury down they go,
Loose the firm rocks and thunder them below,
Blue
lightnings from the dark cloud's bosom sprung,
Like
serpents menacing with forked tongue,
While many a sturdy
oak that stiffly braved
The threatening hurricane that
round it raved,
Shivered beneath its bright resistless
flash,
Came tumbling down amain with fearful crash.
Air, Earth, and Skies seemed now to try their power,
And
struggle for the mastery of the hour;
Higher the waters
rose, and blacker still,
And threatened soon the narrow
vale to fill. |
